


Ignoring Your Burning Heart Just to Calm Mine

by SuperstringSymphony



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Armor Kink, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bottom Tony Stark, But not between main pairing, Canon-Typical Nazis, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Casual Sex, Chronic Illness, Come Kink, Everyone Needs A Hug, Happy Ending, Holocaust Mention, Idiots in Love, Insecurity, Knotting, M/M, Nazis, No Pregnancy, No mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Tony Stark, PTSD, Pining, Praise Kink, Protectiveness, Service Top Steve, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Switching, Team as Family, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers Mutual Admiration and Self Deprecation Society, Top Steve Rogers, Top Tony Stark, courting, god so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 58,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27603571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperstringSymphony/pseuds/SuperstringSymphony
Summary: He found himself standing in front of a fine jewelry store almost as if on autopilot.  It advertised rings for bonded dyads, triads, jeweled gloves, and all manner of courting gifts.  All beautiful gifts he never would have been able to afford before being frozen.He had money now though, bank accounts left untouched for decades.  Tony had triumphantly informed him he had a big lump sum of backpay to his name as well as being paid by the Avengers.  He had some idea of what he wanted to do.  Of course the trouble was that Tony was an alpha, it wasn’t really common practice to give an alpha lavish courting gifts, but Tony wore jewelry, and in some of the glossy magazine photos he had seen of him, Tony had been wearing gloves, so clearly he eschewed traditions both spoken and unspoken.There were pictures of him too, with little accompanying press blurbs.  Pictures of him with other alphas, though he seemed to favor betas, but it meant maybe, just maybe he had a chance.  Or at least, he wasn’t entirely averse to stepping out with another alpha.--Or that A/B/O  where Steve thinks Tony is an alpha and wants to date him anyway, AKA the fic no one asked me for but I wrote anyway.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 78
Kudos: 239





	1. I Know Where You've Been, In the Deep End

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in a sort of nebulous 616 universe in early canon (with the time moved up to modern times) and follows Steve from his childhood onward. This entire fic arose from my vehement insistence that I would probably never write an ABO, but then I got an idea that wouldn't leave me alone for two years, and here we are. I take some ABO tropes and run with them, but a lot of it is my own, hopefully you all want to come chill in my weird little sandbox.
> 
> Many innumerable thanks to Blossomsinthemist/SakuraTsukikage for cheering me on, assisting with brainstorming, sharing her vast knowledge of football with me, and just generally being wonderful. You're the best and ILY  
> Also thanks to SOMY, for encouraging me to keep writing. 
> 
> WARNINGS FOR:  
> As this follows Steve from a young age I must repeat, there are mentions of Nazis, the A-bomb, and the holocaust, please take care of yourselves. <3  
> As always, comments and kudos much appreciated, and if you'd like to talk to me my Discord tag is iLuna#6666 I promise I'm friendly!

* * *

Steve was nine the first time he understood he might be alone for the rest of his life. It was early, the few minutes before Mrs. Carmichael would unfailingly put down the newest Sears and Roebuck catalog and begin taking roll. He remembered his ma’ looking at some curtains in that very same catalog just one evening before, before she had sighed, dog-eared the page, and put it away. The way she always had when the winter chill started to make itself known, and Steve’s breathing rattled in his chest. The way she had since his father had passed away, and their blankets had become thinner and thinner every year, and his socks gathered holes no matter how dutifully they were darned.  
  
Steve was still staring at the catalog, calculating how many papers he’d have to deliver to get his ma’ those new curtains, when the door to the classroom swung open, and Russell Blanchard waltzed in. Russel was often late, and Steve privately thought he relished it a little when Mrs. Carmichael gave him a talking to, but something in his bearing had changed. A pair of fine leather gloves were tucked into his back pocket. There was something else too, a faint soapy, powdery scent that went sugary sweet at the end. _Oh,_ Steve thought, and sat up a little straighter in his seat. Russel was an omega. It made a certain kind of sense, and Steve had been a little sweet on him since last year, when Russel shared his mallow cup at lunch. As if he sensed the classroom full of curious eyes on him, Russel grinned, whipping his gloves out of his pocket, and very conspicuously pulling them on.  
  
“Hey Russell,” Steve whispered across the aisle, and Russell turned towards him with a wide, toothy grin, like he’d been waiting for someone to ask, “you wearing those to show off or what?” Steve immediately regretted his own tone, but he couldn’t exactly walk the words back. Still, Russell’s smile only seemed to get wider.

“Hugged my ma this morning and I could tell she was sore at my da’, and then she had to go take a nap.” He said triumphantly, dropping down into his seat to swing his legs.   
  
“So that’s real, you really can, I dunno, feel what other people are feeling when you touch ‘em?” Steve asked, eyes widening when Russell shrugged, affected and unaffected at once.

“Maybe, but I’m not touchin’ you, so don’t ask.” A round of scattered laughter met the words, and Steve felt his whole body go hot with embarrassment. Everyone had heard, of course they had. It wasn’t polite to ask all this stuff of an omega he barely knew, and what’s more, Steve was not big and strong. The way alphas were supposed to be, the way his ma’ and his dad had been. The way he hoped he might be if it turned out he was an alpha too. Russell was an omega, he’d have his pick.   
  
Steve wasn’t exactly clear on what it all meant, being an alpha, or a beta, or even, if you had boocoos of luck and turned out an omega. He did know however, that whatever he turned out to be, he’d have a lot of growing to do for anyone to give him a fair shot. Steve blinked back tears, firmed his jaw. The laughter had died down, but scattered whispers still went around the room, glances drifted in his direction. Steve swallowed, and looked up in time to see it as Russel’s expression twisted into something like regret, but he went back to examining his new gloves, and he wouldn’t meet Steve’s eyes.

“If we are all done with this morning’s drama, then I think it is high time for roll.” Mrs. Carmichael’s voice broke out over the class, and there was another brief smattering of laughter, but it soon died down, and class began. 

By the end of the day, everyone had their head stuffed with enough arithmetic to bore a cow to death, and no one seemed to remember how bad Steve had stuck his foot in it in the morning. Steve remembered though, sitting at his kitchen table, boosted up by a book while he scribbled on a worksheet. He was still sitting there when Sarah got home, he could tell it was her, her walk was slow, the way it always was after a long night on her feet.  
  
“Long day?” She said, coming closer to peer over Steve’s shoulder. One of her cool hands pressed to Steve’s forehead, and Steve swallowed, he really hoped he didn’t have a fever, he felt fine!   
  
“I’m fine ma’, just a lotta homework.”  
  
“Mm,” She said to the affirmative, and bumped her shoulder against Steve’s, “that all?”  
  
Steve very carefully set his pencil down, gnawing at his lip. “Ma, can omegas really tell what you’re thinking about?” He finally got out, after a few moments of staring into eyes just as blue as his own. Sarah just laughed, staring skyward for a moment, before sitting down across the table from him.  
  
“Well, honey, not exactly. They have to touch a person first, and even then, they can’t tell exactly what you’re thinking about. Just feelings, that kind of thing.” Sarah said, while she shrugged out of her coat and then layed it over Steve’s shoulders. Steve blinked, tugging it closer around himself, but still remained focused on the questions he had been dying to ask all day.

“But Susie Briggs said her omega ma’ said she could tell what her alpha mama was thinking about last night.” Steve bulled on, unable to contain the stubborn jut of his lip. Sarah groaned, muttering something in Gaelic under her breath that Steve didn’t quite catch.

“Well,” Sarah began delicately, “I suppose sometimes they can see into ah, their partner’s heads, but that’s only if they’re with an alpha, and only at certain special times. I wouldn’t know though, your old man was an alpha, and so am I.” The way she said it meant it was adult stuff, probably like kissing, and whatever was on page six Steve wasn’t allowed to look at. Steve got the feeling he was missing out on a lot there, but it was a good enough explanation for the time being.

And it was a perfectly adequate explanation until a few months later when Steve got into a fight with Andy Williams on the sidewalk after school because he’d been bullying the babies in first grade, and he was suddenly gripped by an anger so intense it made him falter for a moment. Andy had gotten a solid punch in, but Steve hadn’t felt a thing, and continued not to feel a thing, sitting silent and fuming out by the principal's office. He was covered in bruises, his lip was split, and his knuckles looked pretty nasty, but it didn’t hurt. Not the way it had the last time he and Andy had gotten into a scrap.

Andy was in far worse shape, sure he was busted up less than Steve, but he was crying something fierce. Steve scowled, refusing to feel bad about the whole mess. If Andy wasn’t such a big palooka of a bully, none of this would have happened. Who picked on babies? A guy looking for a sock in the kisser, that’s who.  
  
Steve was confident in the rightness of his actions until Sarah showed up, took one look at him and sighed out an exasperated “Oh Steve.” She didn’t say much more until they made it back to the apartment. It was getting cold, and would freeze outside soon. Steve shivered, watching Sarah putting a cool compress together. Her lips were turned down, but she smiled as she applied it to the quickly swelling side of his face with great care, the way he’d seen her tend to neighbors who came knocking on the door in the middle of the night.   
  
“Sorry ma’,” He said, she just sighed again, grabbed his chin, and tilted his face around to get a good look.

“That’s going to be one heck of a bruise, a leanbh, what have I told you about fighting?” She sounded somehow exasperated, proud, and tired all at once. 

“Doesn’t hurt, Andy deserved it anyway, he was picking on the first graders, and I dunno, I couldn’t just let him do that y’know.” Steve felt strange. There was a rushing sound in his ears, a coil of energy still coursing through his veins. Sarah pressed the compress a little more tightly to his face.

“It really doesn’t hurt? Honey, you can tell me the truth if it does.” She said quietly, but there was something knowing in her eyes.  
  
“It doesn’t, really, I can take it.” He said, determined to show her he was alright, that she didn’t need to worry. If anything his answer only seemed to put that look on her face she got when he told her he wanted a hot dog instead of his vegetables.  
  
“Steve Rogers, that is not what I asked you.” And yeah that was the same voice too. Steve licked his lips, feeling the split in it more by texture than any sensation. It didn’t really feel like anything, not compared to the way his body was humming.  
  
“Sorry ma’, sorry, but yeah, doesn’t hurt, just kinda feels like, pressure, maybe?” He could sort of feel it, if he really concentrated.  
  
“You feel really awake, like you could take on the world?” She sounded as if she already knew the answer to that question, but had to ask it anyway. Like Mrs. Carmichael when she asked if anyone had done the homework after Halloween.  
  
“Yeah!” Steve said, nearly jolting the compress from his face in his enthusiasm. “How, how do you know that?”  
  
“Because a leanbh, I’m an alpha too.” Her voice was so gentle, understanding, and of course she would understand.   
  
“Y’mean, I’m like you, like dad was too?” He asked, suddenly even more excited, because both of his parents were good protectors, good alphas. The kind of people alphas should be. “Does that mean I’ll grow, get big and strong, like you and dad?” Steve had thought that he would probably end up an alpha, both his parents were after all. As the years passed, and his body remained frail, sick, too weak to stand some days, he had given up on that dream. A dream that he now felt singing in his veins. Sarah’s expression did something complicated, her smile faltered, for a moment the sadness she often hid so well crossed her features, but she seemed to rally herself, passing him a glass and a few chalky pills to swallow.  
  
“It could happen, you could grow tall and strong, but you have to eat your vegetables, you hear?” She poked his uninjured cheek and Steve laughed, but the smile soon dropped off his face. “Ma’, what if I don’t,” He swallowed, running a hand over his injured knuckles, “What if I don’t grow, or get strong, how can I be a good alpha?” Steve remembered sitting in a hospital bed, listening to Sarah talking to a doctor and crying. He knew his heart was bad, that his body hurt nine days out of ten. Even in the flush of optimism of his first Alpha rush, he knew the future might not be so rosy. 

“Then you be a good man, huh? You show them how sweet you are, no one can say no to that, now what do you say, you want some soup?” She moved closer, kissing the top of his head, stroking her strong, slender fingers through the mop of disheveled gold.   
  
“Okay.” He said, his throat suddenly tight, though he didn’t know why. He wanted something warm, he felt jittery and tired all at once. It was a strange feeling, not unlike that awful shaky feeling he got after his breathing treatments after a particularly bad asthma attack  
  
He ate the soup Sarah put in front of him almost on auto-pilot. It was a thick, hearty broth, it tasted expensive, and Steve ended up putting away two bowls of the stuff before finally climbing into his bed. The winter blankets were piled atop it already, but even then, he still felt cold.   
  
“Scoot over, come on then, coming down is pretty rough, isn’t it?” Sarah was there, dressed in one of her long nightgowns, a robe belted around her waist. She didn’t wait for a response, climbing into the bed and pulling Steve against her. It was immediate, the rush of comfort and warmth. He still felt jittery and out of sorts, his body was starting to ache, but the contact did something to him, made it all easier to bear.  
  
“Coming down?” He asked, his teeth were starting to chatter, the cold seeping in through the blankets felt amplified beyond normal levels, even with his ma’ warm and right there next to him.   
  
“Protecting people,” She started, “Getting into fights, it does something to alphas. Makes us feel good, invincible even, like you every day, spitfire.” She smiled, gently tweaking his nose. Steve wrinkled it, cuddling closer to try and share in whatever warmth he could. “Things don’t hurt, I’ve seen alphas come into the hospital bloody and broken, and smiling, because they protected someone.” She went quiet, her arms tightening around Steve’s body. “It makes us stronger, it’s from Before, when we were all just wild things beating each other with sticks out in the woods.”  
  
“Like Andy.” Steve muttered under his breath.  
  
She laughed, seemingly despite herself, shifting around so her body blocked the drafty air blowing in from cracks in the window. “Yes, like Andy, the dastardly villain, picking on babies.” She said, sounding bemused.  
  
“I don’t like him, he’s a donkey’s rear end is all, he always acts like he’s so big and tough. I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have socked him so good, he was crying like I took all his sweets on Christmas.” Steve allowed, regret after getting into a fight wasn’t something he was unfamiliar with. He supposed maybe he could have reasoned with Andy, but the sight of him menacing those little kids had made him see red.   
  
“Well, donkey’s rear end or not, be careful, I’m glad you weren’t seriously injured, but, just, be careful.” Steve heard many parents over the years in their apartments mourning the loss of an alpha child to the armed forces. It was a calling many went to, a place where they could serve as protectors, on the front lines, where Alphas had always been since armies existed. There were less alphas now, Steve remembered his social studies lessons, Mrs. Carmichael droning on about populations reacting to war, and alphas only making up a fifth of the world population now, compared to some unbelievable fraction before they’d invented the wheel, or however it went, there were even fewer omegas. He couldn’t really remember though, he had been too busy staring at the back of Russell’s head.  
  
There was a part of him, a big part that wanted to join the army too, that felt drawn to the idea of protecting people, of making the world safer for everyone, all those amazing posters of brave alphas and betas going off to the great war. He knew he wasn’t really army material as it stood, but he was sure by the time he was eighteen, he’d be a real adult then, all grown up.   
  
“Don’t be in a rush to get out there, a leanbh, I see you thinking.” Sarah said, hugging him a little more tightly against herself.

“Aw, ma’, I’m not going anywhere, gotta wait ‘til I’m all grown and strong anyway.” He tried not to sound bitter, but he still thought he might of, a little.  
  
"A strong heart will take you further than any physical strength. A strong heart means you'll never quit, you always stand up, you remember that.” She said, her hand rubbing slow and soothing circles over his back.   
  
The words stayed with him as he fell asleep, and stayed with him even when it became apparent that being an alpha did not mean his asthma would disappear, or that he’d gain a hundred pounds of muscle and a foot of height. They stayed with him even as his ‘ma lay in her bed slowly dying of tuberculosis. She had once seemed so big to him, so strong, and invincible, as she had once said. The disease had not cared about how Steve Rogers looked at her and had seen a titan. She slept then more than she was awake, and for that Steve was grateful. Wakefulness brought a horrible rasping cough that made her eyes pinch with pain. She tried to hide it, but it became Steve’s duty to help her take the medication to ease her pain, even if it could do nothing to cure her. There were many times in Steve’s life where he felt helpless, and this was one of the greatest. Sitting there, beside his mother, watching her fight a disease no alpha could protect her from, not even she herself, Steve knew his childhood was effectively over, short and tumultuous as it had been.   
  
She still smiled though, in the short times her eyes opened. Steve brought home books from the library, and taught himself to paint, in the long hours holding vigil next to his mother. He read about gifts too, about courting, and the particular way gloves could be used to indicate someone was sweet on another person. There were a whole gaggle of glove wearing dames and fellas at school now. There was no way all of them were omegas, but it sure did look nice on them, a fashion accessory everyone but an alpha might find appealing to wear. Steve personally thought Russell wore them best. He’d grown into his omegahood over the years, tall and handsome, with flame red hair and flashing eyes. Steve knew he didn’t have a chance, but well, some part of him still wanted to try.  
  
“What do you think ma’, I’ve been learning how to make bracelets, do you think Russell would like one?” He asked, more to himself than Sarah, but to his surprise, her weak, rasping voice answered back.  
  
“I’d say if he doesn’t, then he’s got his head stuck up his rear end.” Steve nearly dropped the book on beading he had been reading, jumping up to walk over to the bed and help Sarah drink the water she was reaching for.   
  
“Ma’,” He said only half reproachfully, laughing despite himself.  
  
“What, can’t a mother have an opinion these days?” Her eyes sparkled in a way Steve hadn’t seen since she had become bedridden. Steve swallowed, closing his eyes and trying to burn that image into his mind. The way she looked when she smiled, when she called the guy that turned up at their door selling snake oil a crackpot and a quack.  
  
He began painting her that night. The canvas was the largest he could afford, the paints limited by his budget as well. He painted her as he remembered her, as the smiling, larger than life figure in his life. The truest model of what an alpha should be, in her brilliant starched white nursing dress. It took days, but the look on her face when she opened her eyes and saw it was worth the sleepless nights, and the constant paint stains on his fingers. It was the last time they spoke, the last time he saw her alive.  
  
“You’re going to be an amazing man,” She had said, “A good alpha, you’ll see.” Steve carried that message with him through her funeral, trying to hold on to the first voice he had known. The first voice that had ever believed in him. The churchyard was full of people from the apartments, and patients whose lives had been touched by Sarah Rogers. There was only a small marker commemorating her, Steve had scraped for months to afford it and the engraving. It had seemed macabre at the time, but Sarah had just scoffed, squeezed his hand, and asked for a rose to be etched above her name. Steve had done it, he only wished he could have afforded something better, something as grand as his mother had always been in his mind. He supposed it didn’t matter anyway. What was that saying, ‘funerals are for the living.’ If he’d told her he wished he could have gotten her a mausoleum, she probably would have been fit to be tied. Steve smiled to himself just thinking of the offense that would have caused, and then he went to speak with other people who knew Sarah in life.   
  
That evening, the apartment which once seemed so small and cramped seemed massive in the dark. Steve was cold, shaking as he once had been the first time an alpha rush upended his nerves. Unnerved, and unable to sleep, he filled an empty glass bottle with hot water, wrapped it in a towel, and held it until the cold around dawn woke him with cruel, icy fingers down his spine.   
  
He laid there trembling for another twenty minutes, before swinging his legs over to rest on the floorboards. He could reach them now when sitting on the bed, he had grown tall, but not strong, as his foolish, childish self had once dreamed. He knew now, that the possibility was no longer there, that he would be frail and sickly for the rest of his life, however long that might be. 

Steve shivered, wrapping his arms around himself, thinking about the things his classmates said. About how warm other people were, how good it felt to just hold another person. Steve had heard too, about what it was like to be touched by an omega. The way it made people feel the best they had ever felt, how during the great war special omegas worked with battle-fatigued alphas and betas coming back from deployment. Sat in the barbershop getting his hair trimmed, he listened to an older alpha with a chest full of medals talk about his omega and beta partners, and how they made coming home worthwhile, how they drove the cold away. He had wanted to speak up, to ask questions, but he knew what he looked like. He didn’t look like he had any business, or any chance at living a life like that, but by God he wanted it, or something like it.  
  
Of course, sitting around and feeling sorry for himself wasn’t really going to help him either. He could just hear Sarah telling him not to mope, that she was fine, that he was making all this fuss while she and seanáthair and mhamó looked down on him. Steve admonished himself as he picked up the book on beading, still laying where it had been dropped what felt like a lifetime ago, but had really been only days.   
  
The beadwork was repetitive, but also soothing, and much like painting, Steve lost himself in it for hours. The end result wasn’t anything ritzy by any means, just a simple woven bracelet with tiny blue beads, but Steve hoped Russell might like it, that he’d keep it, and if Steve was really lucky, maybe he’d wear it too. Steve had seen pictures, glamorous black and white stills of fabulously wealthy alphas and betas presenting their omega partners with gems, and cars, and lavish coats of the finest fur. Even then sometimes, a courtship gift might be rejected, he’d seen many pictures of omegas with their gloves rolled up in their hand, their gazes turned away, in a clear signal for ‘no’; omegas were offered so many gifts after all, and while they could make time with anyone they liked, they usually only accepted gifts from the people they knew and wanted to spend more time with anyway. Any bozo could walk up to an omega and try to start up a courtship, but that didn’t mean the feeling was mutual.  
  
Steve frowned, looking down at the bracelet in his hands. It seemed so silly now, the idea of walking up to Russell and holding this out to him like some kind of prize. Or maybe leaving it on his desk with a letter of intention, the way the alphas in the movie pictures did it. Steve felt his ears burn at the thought of it. Of Russell opening up a heartfelt letter and seeing Steve was worth it.   
  
His ears burned more as he got out the nicest stationary they had. A smooth cream colored cardstock with an illuminated border of gold and green swirls and swooping birds in vibrant colors. It had been a present from Sarah on his twelfth birthday, and had surely cost her a pretty penny. Steve’s hand shook as he poured his heart out onto the page in his neatest calligraphy. When the letter was finished, he waited for it to dry, and sealed it with wax, tucking the bracelet inside the envelope with the letter. His heart raced, he just knew his face had to be a glowing shade of scarlet, but he had done it, he’d really written it out, his intentions and his jumbled feelings. 

That night he slept with the hot water bottle wrapped in towels again. It was a fitful night, sleep not coming easily, and the majority of the night spent tossing and turning, with Steve waking from half formed dreams and nightmares.   
  
In the morning though, he stood in front of the spotted mirror in his bathroom, and made sure his hair looked as perfect as it possibly could. His shoes shined, his Sunday best on. Steve turned from left to right, checking for holes or loose threads and finding none. He remembered buying this suit, with his own money, he remembered how proud his ma’ had been, how she’d hugged him and told him how much he had grown.  
  
“I can do this.” He said to the mirror. Even his reflection looked a little dubious.

The letter felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket as he walked through the hallways towards a now familiar classroom. The school was busy and buzzing with activity as ever, but Steve paid no mind to the noise around him.   
  
He was early, but not early enough it would have seemed. In the classroom, gifts were already numerous atop Russell’s desk. Little packages of brightly colored wrapping paper, letters on finer stationary than his own, jars full of homemade gifts, and one box Steve could tell was jewelry. Steve put his hand in his pocket, pressed his fingers against the letter with his heart in it, and turned away to sit down at his own desk. He stared fixedly at the woodgrain of his own desk, feeling his heart in his throat, until Russell himself walked in.   
  
He moved differently since he had come into his omegahood; he moved like he knew he was being watched. Of course Steve was watching him, and so was half the class, as Russell sat down to look at the little gifts arrayed all over his desk. As Steve watched, one of their classmates leaned into Russell’s space and whispered to him. Russell turned in his seat a moment later to look at Steve. It was a sharp glance, but he hooded the look, his gaze drifted to the side, and then he took off his gloves, rolling them up in his hand.   
  
‘ _No._ ’ Loud and clear. He supposed that was better than having his gift returned and for everyone in their damn grade to have figured out Steve had been rejected. He supposed he was luckier even, than all the other hopefuls who would have gifts returned to their faces, likely in front of their friends and peers. Steve dropped his eyes back to the table. It still stung like hell.  
  
The whole day passed in a sort of fog, Steve barely paid the lessons any mind, and when the school day was over, he went walking. He walked and walked, until he ended up around the gin joints not so far from his apartment. It was late, the sun had gone down long ago in a brilliant show of oranges and purples. Steve stared up at the hazy sky. There was too much pollution and light in the heart of the lower east side to see the stars, but he imagined them up there, far distant points of light, and he wondered what it would be like to fly, to be out of his aching body. It was a stupid thought, childish, but Steve couldn’t help himself.   
  
His contemplation was broken up by the raucous singing of a group of betas leaning on each other as they walked. He could smell that they weren’t alphas or omegas, several of them wore gloves, one of them was conspicuously missing one. Steve wondered if they knew where they were, this wasn’t exactly the best place to be drifting around all in a sozzled stupor. Especially not with the fine jewelry they all had adorning their fingers.   
  
“Hey,” he said, gathering his courage as five pairs of eyes turned to fix on him, “you guys live around here?”  
  
One of the betas giggled, and the other four interjected various drunken directions as to where they lived. Yeah, they were all corked, that was for sure. A few years ago they might’ve been coming from a speakeasy and trying to be a little more subtle about it, but after President Roosevelt had gotten rid of prohibition it wasn’t an uncommon sight to see a group of carousers singing their way down the sidewalks at night. Still wasn’t a particularly bright idea. 

“I could walk you guys home, this isn’t a real prime place to be after hours.” Steve squared his shoulders, tried to make himself look broader and more like the big six kind of fella he watched in the movies. An alpha they could trust to get them home all in one piece.   
  
“We got ourselves a bluenose!” One of the betas crowed, and Steve felt his stomach sink. “You’re all wet if you think you’re some big cheese honey, we’ll be just fine without an alpha watching our backs.” The group laughed, weaving as one a little further down the sidewalk in a slow drunken shuffle.   
  
“I know you don’t need one but,” Steve felt his own face reddening, that pit in the base of his stomach he knew all too well. He wanted to be a good alpha, for those betas to have looked at him and seen a protector, and not a laughing stock.  
  
“Baby,” One of the betas sighed, she was the oldest of the group it looked like, her curls were starting to come down, and her lipstick was smudged, but Steve still thought she was a real doll, “what are you gonna protect us from, you’d just get yourself roughed up and then we’d all feel bad. Get outta here, go home, we’re copacetic okay.”  
  
There wasn’t really anything he could have said to that. Not without being a total heel who ignored their wishes. Besides, Steve supposed they were right. He was just a skinny little alpha walking up to them. There was no reason for them to have believed he was capable of holding his own against anyone really, alpha or not.   
  
Steve had to do better.  
  
The next morning, he set out to De Rossi’s gym. It was a few blocks down from his apartment. Small and tucked away between a glasses repair shop and a deli. He’d seen it a few times, but thought maybe he’d have been laughed out if he tried to sign up at a gym. There was nothing to be lost though-people already laughed at him anyways-so Steve stepped inside. A little tinkly bell announced his entrance, but no one looked up. There was a boxing ring in the center, where a pair of betas were doing their level best to knock each other's blocks off while laughing. All along the sides of the ring, men and women lifted weights, or talked in little groups off to the side. No one paid him any mind, and Steve felt a wave of relief course through him.  
  
“Steve, you finally decided to visit!” A loud voice called out, and Steve turned to see Lorenzo De Rossi strolling over. He was an older alpha, with salt and pepper hair and dark, laughing eyes. He had been at Sarah’s funeral, Steve remembered his ma’ saying he’d lost his only child to the great war. A tall strapping Alpha girl by the name of Eleonora. She’d been a miracle baby, same as Steve. Both Lorenzo and his wife Mia were alphas, so the odds had always been against them to have a kid. He remembered Sarah retelling the story with great sadness. Eleonora had made her family proud, she had been a good alpha, but that didn’t make it any easier on her family.   
  
“Hey Lorenzo, got room for one more?” Steve asked, holding his hand out so he and Lorenzo could clasp each other’s forearms in greeting. Lorenzo just grinned, motioning for Steve to follow him around for a tour of the place. 

“Bambino, if I said no, what kind of man would I be? Mia would never forgive me, I am old, but not a numbskull.” Lorenzo’s dark brown eyes glittered, deep laugh lines creased about his eyes. Steve couldn’t help but smile back at that. It felt unfamiliar on his own face, it had been so long since he’d had anything to smile about. “So,” Lorenzo said, bringing Steve into his cramped office in the back of the gym, “what are you looking for here, you want to lift weights, learn how to stretch?”  
  
“I’d really like to learn how to throw a punch without breaking my hand,” Steve blurted out, “Mister Lorenzo. I’d like to learn how to protect someone better if I needed to.” He amended, already calculating the extra shift he’d have to take on to pay for the monthly membership. It would be worth it, if he could learn.  
  
“Ah, I see, well then, you are in the right place, go get changed, and meet me at the punching bags in the back.” Lorenzo said, his gaze warm and understanding.

“What, you uh, just like that?” Steve said, caught off guard entirely by that easy acceptance. “What about my membership dues, shouldn’t I pay that first?”

“No membership dues, not for you.” Lorenzo said, crossing his arms as if daring Steve to argue with him, even if he was still smiling.  
  
“I don’t need charity Mister Lorenzo, I’m good for it, got enough jack.” Steve knew he probably looked like he only had a few wooden nickels to rub together, but he wasn’t about to start taking people’s handouts. Other people could use that more than him.  
  
“Your mama helped keep my Mia alive during the Spanish flu, bambino, it is not charity.” Lorenzo’s tone brooked no further arguments. Steve hadn’t known that, Sarah had never said.  
  
After that, Steve began attending the gym whenever he could squeeze in the time. Between school, and work, and his bouts of illness it wasn’t much, but the next time he got into a scrap, he left the other guy looking worse off than himself. Lorenzo still tutted over him the next time he’d seen him, and insisted Steve come over for dinner after he taught him how to block. An invitation Steve had very nearly declined, but finally agreed to when Lorenzo admitted that he and Mia missed having a young alpha in the house to feed. Back at their apartment Mia hugged him after an effusive greeting, and the feeling of her warm arms around him, the way she ushered him into a chair and ruffled his hair, it had reminded him of Sarah. She and Lorenzo had bickered good naturedly while cooking together, not allowing him to assist in any sort of way, and Steve had gone home that evening full of food and warmth for the first time since Sarah had passed away.  
  
On the weekend, he took in a movie at the cinema. They were showing some old silent film reels for their ten cent matinee, and Steve went eagerly. On the screen Rudolph Valentino was sweeping Nita Naldi into a passionate kiss. Gosh what a guy Valentino had been, Steve felt his cheeks heat a little just watching the two of them carrying on. Having an omega like Valentino kissing the bejesus out of you was probably a head turner even if it was just an acted scene. Steve wasn’t the only one leaning forward in his seat, so he didn’t feel too silly about his hopeless crush. Valentino was long gone anyway. A fact many of the alphas and betas around his ma’s age had bemoaned often. Steve had to say, he agreed.  
  
There was no shortage of celebrities and dignitaries in the gossip rags. Glitzy alphas and betas and even the occasional omega. Valentino still had them all beat, but Cary grant might have given him a run for his money, or Grace Kelly.  
  
After the movie he treated himself to a slow walk home, contemplating the new blocking moves Lorenzo had been trying to drill into his head. It felt like something was missing, it was hard to block with such thin arms. Maybe if he had a shield like one of the knight characters in his ma’s old romance novels. He supposed he couldn’t justify just walking around with one of those strapped to his back like some kind antique turtle. Sure would have made getting swung at easier though.  
  
Time passed on almost uneventfully after that. Steve split his time as he always had, winter came and went, leaving behind a cough and a wheeze in his lungs that wouldn’t quit. Hunger seemed to be there almost constantly, but the De Rossis insisted he come eat with them at least twice a week. Times were rough, but Steve felt he was a lucky man, after all there were people who didn’t even have an apartment to come home to, or anyone to offer them a hug after a long crummy day.  
  
Then, the unthinkable happened. In September of 1939, Steve had woken to find the news stands full of papers plastered with dreadful news. Europe was at war. The great war should have been the last war the world had seen, but it looked like that wasn’t going to be the case. Steve bought one of the papers and paged through it with shaking hands. Everyone had known things were not going well in Europe, but the politicians in the states had been trying to downplay it, to keep the unrest quiet. It wasn’t quiet anymore.  
  
It made perfect sense then, to find the nearest army recruitment office. Sure he was only seventeen, but they had to let him join, surely. He wasn’t exactly sure how one went about enlisting, but surely a recruitment officer would talk to him. What he had not counted on was that the states had apparently not gotten the memo. Sat across from a recruitment officer, he stared in incredulity as she told him the United States had not gotten involved in the war as of yet.

“What do you mean we’re neutral?” Steve asked in horror, picking up the paper and setting it on the desk. “Have you seen what they’re doing over there, those Nazi bastards, what’s America even about if we’re not joining up to fight them tooth and nail?” He could tell he was speaking too loudly, that his hands were shaking, but he didn’t care. How could anyone, even some slimeball politician, see what was happening over in Europe and not want to stop it?  
  
“I’m sorry son, there’s nothing we can do about that, no matter how much we might like to.” the recruitment officer grimaced. She was an alpha too, she felt that desire to protect too, Steve felt himself deflate in the face of her regret.  
  
“Congress can move on any kind of malarkey but they can’t on this?” Steve grumbled under his breath, but shook his head, sitting up straighter, meeting the recruiters eyes with as much conviction as he could. “Then I’d like to join up anyway, they’ve gotta move on this sometime.” In response the recruiter sighed, setting his file down and regarding him calmly.  
  
“Son you’re only seventeen, that’s a year too young for me or any other recruiter. Wait a year, and come back, that’s all I can tell you.” She didn’t look all that happy about bursting his bubble, and he had a feeling there was a whole lot more she wanted to say, but she merely pushed back her seat, clasped Steve’s arm and then ushered him on his way. Steve went without protest, too unhappy with the whole affair to even put up a fight. Maybe he’d lie to the next recruiter. He didn’t like the idea of lying at all but, what kind of alpha would he have been if he didn’t even try?  
  
As it turned out, lying about his age didn’t seem to help matters any. He was still turned away, his health records doing more against him than any forged age marker could. All the while, the war in Europe waged on. Steve read all the papers, saw the devastation in pictures of a bombed London, tales of horrible scenes witnessed by fleeing refugees, and waited for congress to finally join up. He worked out harder than ever with Lorenzo, on some days Mia came down and helped with his form too. He was starting to get real good at speaking Italian too, good enough to get his cheeks pinched by the tiny stooped nonna that visited the De Rossis every weekend for gossip and espresso. She critiqued his accent at first, but lately she had nothing but praise. Steve felt unaccountably proud when he’d greeted her last, and she exclaimed in approval, she was a tough critic, and a shark at cards, Steve couldn’t have asked for a better bellwether for his linguistic success.   
  
He still fell ill around October, bronchitis taking hold of him and not leaving until December. It was in December of 1941 that the congress finally did what they should have done years prior, and it would have meant a lot more to Steve had it not taken Pearl Harbor to get congress’ collective heads out of their rear ends.  
  
Steve knew what he had to do, and he was nineteen now, there was no way the war effort would turn him away. Except of course, they did. One rejection turned into two, and two into three, until his list of rejections became almost as long as the lists his doctors furrowed their brows over when they thought he couldn’t see. Steve didn’t quit though, he kept going back, kept striving. If anything was an alpha’s purpose, then helping to stop the evil going on in Germany certainly had to be it. It seemed like everyone was signing up, lines snaked around recruitment offices in long teeming ribbons of alphas and betas alike. He was sure there were probably a few omegas in there too, although they were unlikely to be put on the front lines. Omegas were too valuable, too rare, and their abilities were pivotal to keep their alpha and beta counterparts from losing themselves. He’d heard of some omega soldiers in the past, but war was hard on them, their empathy and ability to both affect and be affected by emotion made them fearsome warriors if they so chose, but it also almost always destroyed them.  
  
No one was saying omegas _couldn’t_ fight, Achilles and many other great heroes had been omegas after all. Steve remembered hearing stories of brave omegas coming back glassy eyed from the great war. One had been found in no man’s land, half buried by a company of dying alphas and betas. She had been trying to offer peace to her men, her gloves off and arms bared, pouring her comfort out like blood because no rescue was coming. She had survived, but the anguish of not being able to save her company left her an empty shell of who she had once been. Most had died, going down into the trenches and refusing to leave their posts and their companies, until they had been shot down or gassed or worse. The Spanish Flu had thinned their numbers even further. They had marched into hospitals full of the sick and dying, offering the solace of their touch, and never coming out. Being an omega did not make one immune to disease after all. 

They had lost a generation of omegas to the combined forces of the great war and the Spanish Flu, and they were been rare to begin with. Everyone had hoped the peace would last, that maybe their numbers would recover, but the person in line ahead of him smelled a little like vanilla cookies, sweet, heady, and wrapped in spice. A young omega, just as young as Steve himself. Steve knew they would not be allowed out on the battlefield, no matter how much they wanted to fight. He knew they would likely be held back, too valuable to be sent out on the front lines, if they were allowed to join up at all. 

He felt for them though, as much as he didn’t want more omegas to be lost. Steve knew what it was like, that desperate desire to fight and protect, only to be turned away because of how you were born, what it said on your medical records. There would still be losses though, omegas that would slip through the cracks, or insist they be sent out, and if the war got desperate enough, they would be, and another generation might be lost.

Everything but the present fled out of his head however, when it was his turn to be scrutinized by the recruitment officer. He was a beta this time, but no more impressed with Steve than any of the others had been. He at least seemed regretful while turning Steve away, saying it just wouldn’t feel right to put Steve through when he was still sick to boot. Steve cursed his foul luck to have had a coughing fit while insisting on his own readiness to serve.

“Of all the rotten times for you to act up.” He muttered to his own lungs as he trudged down the street towards the subway station. He was still close to the recruitment office, his steps intentionally slow, when a ruckus just a little ways ahead made his head snap up.

There were two tall big sixes hassling a tiny elderly beta woman. As he watched they made a grab for her purse and pushed her over. No one moved to help her, what the hell were they waiting for? Steve didn’t miss a beat. He ran to the woman’s side, patting her over to ensure nothing was broken. He remembered his neighbor, Mister O’Brian breaking his hip after a fall much gentler than this one.

“Oh don’t worry about me dear, but my bag, there’s pictures of my grandbabies in there, and my prescriptions for my heart.” A frail hand clung to Steve’s arm, and Steve patted it, before helping the elderly woman to her feet.

“Okay, count on me, I’ll get it back for you ma'am.” Steve said, making sure the woman sat before taking off at a sprint in the direction of the two fleeing men. They hadn’t gotten far, seemingly thinking no one planned on chasing them down. Steve felt anger course through him as they ran into an alleyway. How dare they, how dare they attack someone like that, someone that obviously had no way of defending themselves. His lungs burned, but he didn’t slow down until he was face to face with the two goons.

“Hey you!” He called, and the two men’s faces snapped towards him, “Yeah you, you ugly schmucks, I’m talking to you!” Peripherally, Steve was aware that maybe riling two big alphas up wasn’t the best idea, and they were definitely alphas, the scent of ozone and wind and something wild and spicy overlain by a heavy dose of the tobacco they must have favored hit his nose. Yeah they were definitely alphas. Steve swallowed and raised his fists.  
  
“Listen kid, you don’t know who you’re messing with, scram and we’ll forget all about that little insult.” The taller of the two said. He was a big burly bruiser with arms as big around as one of Steve’s legs. The other guy was shorter, but broader in head and body. 

Steve was suddenly glad he’d run out of money to keep paying for alpha suppressants about a month prior. They weren’t fully purged from his system yet, but he wouldn’t feel it as much when he got punched as he would have had he still been taking them, and if he somehow didn’t end up in traction after this, the drop wouldn’t be as bad as it usually was. His last alpha cycle had been muted, the needy desire to curl around a loved one and protect them still lessened and semi distant, but he felt the rush in his veins that moment, the way the world had blown out and allowed his focus to narrow, in a way that wouldn’t have been possible on the suppressants. He thanked his lucky stars that President Roosevelt hadn’t passed that free suppressants initiative yet, he needed all the strength and stamina he could get, especially while bronchitis stole his already less than stellar lung capacity. He supposed he’d have been more inclined to be upset about not being able to afford them if he wasn’t always getting into scraps, but well, he wasn’t about to back down, and it looked like the other two alphas were not either.

“I don’t give a damn who you are, now give me back that bag or I’ll make you give it back.” Steve said, the words coming out with far more bravado than he truly felt. You always stand up. He could hear his mother’s words, and he stood up straighter, took on the stance Lorenzo had taught him.  
  
“You’re crackers, kid, but fine, if that’s what you wanna do.” Big head said. Steve wondered how the guy could even turn his head with a neck that thick. 

Steve didn’t wait for them to move first, Lorenzo always said catching someone by surprise was the best way to start a fight off with the other person off balance. That and waiting for them to make a move was just going to make his nerves even worse. His heart was already pounding, his vision sharpened, his senses honed. It was similar to when he had fought Andy what felt like a lifetime ago, or any of those schoolyard bullies that liked to play it big and tough, but this was more, these men could kill him, Steve understood that even as he took the first swing. A mean right hook he had to reach for. His knuckles twinged when the punch made contact. Time seemed to move more slowly, but then it seemed to happen all at once. No Neck rushed at him, bowling him over onto his side, but Steve rolled with it, picked himself back up, and launched himself at the laughing bastard. They went down in a pile of limbs, and Steve felt the anger under his skin like a living thing as he socked the guy right in the mouth. His victory was short lived however, as tall, pale, and ugly grabbed him off his buddy and threw him backwards. He hit the ground with a groan, more because of the wind being knocked out of him than any pain. Stars danced before his eyes, his ears rang and his lungs struggled to draw breath, but he dragged himself back up to his feet, only to see the two men give each other a glance. One of them tossed the bag in Steve’s face, and then they booked it out of the alleyway while Steve wheezed and clutched at the delicate white leather purse strap with shaking hands.

"What,” he gasped, “that all, that all you got?” Steve breathed in deep lungfuls of air. He was not about to have an asthma attack, he was absolutely not. Still it was strange, extremely strange. There was no reason for the two alphas to have run off. Steve was not delusional enough to believe that he truly could have won that fight, they’d barely roughed him up at all. Steve had been expecting to end up with at least one black eye, but here he was, mostly uninjured, other than the spots on his back he could already feel were going to purple up. 

He still felt all keyed up though, his body running hot. The sun was too bright, and the city far louder than it usually seemed. The bruises didn’t even hurt, though he knew they were there, and would probably hurt come the next day. If his lungs hadn’t been making their best effort to do the impression of a faulty bellows, Steve would have chased those two goons down the street, but he had what he came for, and the elderly beta woman was in need of her pills more than Steve was in need of punching one of those fatheads again.  
  
The alley seemed a lot longer than it had when he first ran into it, but Steve gamely walked towards the entrance, only to stop short when a shiny green and grey Packard 160 rolled over to block his path, and a man in a long white greatcoat stepped out. Steve took a step back, wary suddenly that the two alphas hadn’t so much left as gone to get another friend. Steve thought this was sure a lot of fuss for one little old lady’s purse. The guy didn’t seem interested in the bag at all though, he was carrying a thick file, and he smelled like a beta, a neutral clean scent that reminded Steve a little of green grass and fresh laundry. He fixed Steve with a piercing gaze, and smiled, a far kinder smile than Steve had seen from most people who wanted to punch his lights out.  
  
“Hello there, I do believe I’ve been looking for someone just like you for a very long time.” He said, in smooth accented English. Steve took another step back.  
  
“What?” He said, looking around quickly to see if there was an easy way to get around the car if he needed to. Maybe he could climb a fire escape. “Whaddya want from me?”  
  
“The question is, what do you want. Why did you chase those two men? They surely could have killed you had it gone wrong. Were you hoping for a reward, here, have this.” The man reached in his pocket to draw out a crisp twenty dollar bill. Steve felt anger flare hot and bright once more.

“I’m not givin’ you the purse, I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you, but it’s not mine to give away.” The nerve of the guy, thinking he could pay Steve off, like he was some kind of lousy cheat who’d give away someone else’s property like that. It was a lot of money, and sure Steve needed it, but he’d made do without it, and he’d keep making doing do.

“I see.” The man said, but he didn’t look steamed about it, on the contrary, he looked positively delighted as he tucked the bill back in his pocket, and turned to knock on the window of the car. A few seconds later, the elderly woman he’d gone to get the bag for stepped out, offering Steve a slightly sheepish smile.

“It’s alright son, you’ve done marvelously, you can relax now.” She wove her way over, her steps short and measured. There was a little pin on her blouse now, she was air force. Steve felt like his world was sliding a little sideways. What in the blue blazes was going on?  
  
“Ma’am, I have your bag?” He said, the words coming out something more a question than a statement. He held the purse out towards her, and she gently took it from his fingers. They were starting to feel cold, he didn’t know what was happening, who these people were.

“Just answer me, why did you go and fight this fight that wasn’t yours?” The man asked again, and Steve could have slid over the hood of the car, could have run, but something about the man made him answer.  
  
“It was the right thing to do. No one else was helping her and I,” Steve swallowed, looking over at the beta woman, she smiled back encouragingly, “I had to do something, anyone would have.”

“No, they would not have, you just said so yourself, and that is why you are special, Mister Rogers.” The words startled Steve back another two steps, he didn’t know whether he should have been getting ready to fight, or anything really. It was so strange, so surreal, as if Steve were standing in the middle of one of Salvador Dali’s paintings watching the walls warp, and clocks melt.  
  
“I’m nobody special, I’m just a guy from the lower east side, I saw someone that needed help so I helped.” The words sounded almost far away, his ears were starting to ring.

“Ah but that makes you extraordinary Mister Rogers. But forgive me, I have not introduced myself. My name is Doctor Abraham Erskine, and I do believe we can help each other out,” Dr. Erskine began.

“I’m not joining any sort of funny business enterprise.” Steve said with as much conviction as he could muster, he knew it was rude to interrupt people while they spoke, but there was no way this could be on the level. He was probably going to get bumped off if he wasn’t careful. 

“You have tried to serve your country, what is it now,” Dr. Erskine opened the file, his brow rising nearly to his hairline, “no less than fifteen times, if we do not count the occasions you attempted to forge your age.” The tone of his voice was something in between amusement and respect. Steve licked his lips, staring at that thick folder. He’d had no idea someone had been keeping tabs on him.

“Am I in trouble?” Steve asked, as the notion that maybe he’d broken some law with all of his applications. Steve didn’t care, it was a dumb law, if they planned on locking him up for trying to serve. He’d tell it to the judge.  
  
“No, not at all, although that would depend on your definition of trouble.” Dr. Erskine still sounded slightly amused, enough that Steve figured he wasn’t about to be clapped in irons. “I have an opportunity for you to serve your country but,”  
  
“Yes.” Steve said. That creeping feeling of unreality after a rush faded almost as soon as it had begun to come on with Dr. Erskine’s words.  
  
“It will be dangerous, you may not survive it.” Maybe another man might have asked more questions. Maybe another man might have heard that and thought to himself that the price was too high, but Steve felt he had waited lifetimes to hear that, to see the look in someone’s eyes that Dr. Erskine directed at him. Dr. Erskine had seen something in him, this was his chance. Steve took a deep breath, and stepped closer to Dr. Erskine, to his future, and held out his hand.

* * *

They arrived at an inconspicuously grimy looking office with very little fanfare. It looked like the sort of place you might go to find a notary, perfectly inconspicuous in its conspicuousness. When they walked in, Dr. Erskine said something that sounded a lot like gibberish, but Steve noted the elderly woman at the back of the office as she clipped something back up under her desk. Steve could smell metal all around the room. _Guns_ , he realized. All of these seemingly innocuous office workers had a gun under their desk.   
  
There were a pair of doors, which opened at their approach, and then swung shut behind them. Steve could hear locks sliding into place behind them. It occurred to him yet again, as it had been occurring to him since he stepped into Dr. Erskine’s Packard, that he really had no idea what he had signed up for. He was alone behind a pair of doors that sounded like they’d need an industrial strength battering ram to get through with a man he barely knew. A man who now regarded him with careful but gentle eyes. 

“You can still say no, say the word, I will have the doors opened, and you may go.” He said it with such finality, such conviction that Steve felt that sort of recklessness and certainty he always did when standing up for something that might get him a fractured rib or two.   
  
“I said yes, I gave my word.” Steve said, as they rounded the corner. He was starting to feel cold again, the rush and urgency draining out of him in a slow sapping wave.  
  
They were not alone as it turned out. They were in a sort of theater it almost looked like. A huge wide room with completely incomprehensible equipment. Lights blinked everywhere, and in the center there was a terrifyingly strange contraption that reminded Steve of nothing more than a massive metal chrysalis. It was like nothing he had ever seen. It was real and unreal, like something out of Metropolis, or the science fiction novels Steve had devoured while laid up in his bed with illness

“What,” Steve started, only to be cut off by Dr. Erskine leading him into a more secluded area, and into a much smaller space, which Steve realized must have been Dr. Erskine’s office. It was a nicely decorated office. There were personal touches here and there, a pair of slippers, a modest sized cigar humidor that all spoke of long hours spent without returning home.

“Take a seat, Mister Rogers.”  
  
“Steve.” He said, sinking down into the seat, feeling far too gangly and uncoordinated for a place that must have been top secret.

“Steve,” Dr. Erskine paused, flipping Steve’s folder open, smoothing the pages down with practiced ease. “I am certain you have already noticed that this is no regular recruitment office.” He smiled crookedly, and Steve looked around, offering a tentative smile in return.  
  
“Aw I don’t know, seems pretty homey, especially that big metal contraption you had over there.” Maybe sass might not have been the right way to approach this, but Dr. Erskine’s gaze sharpened as if he’d said something right.  
  
“Ah yes, this is in fact, about that, or it will be, after a time, provided I have not been mistaken.” Something crossed Dr. Erskine’s face then, regret, anger, but he schooled it away just as quickly, smiling obscurely over at Steve. “I certainly have been before, but no, I do not believe I am, not this time.” He fixed Steve with an intense stare, far more intense than the way Steve was accustomed to being looked at, looked through by people in positions of power and influence. He felt a little like a butterfly pinned to a board. It should have been unpleasant, but it didn’t feel hostile, just curious, hopeful almost. Steve sat up straighter, tried to look like the kind of fella Dr. Erskine could count on.   
  
“What is it, the metal thing, all those machines?” Steve asked, half pleased the question had come out far steadier than he felt. 

“That is for you, Steve, if you are in fact who I have been looking for.” Dr. Erskine watched his face as if expecting some kind of eruption. When Steve just nodded in question, he continued. “You will train with others who have shown promise, you will be sent to Camp Lehigh to improve your understanding of combat and teamwork.”  
  
“So, basic training?” Steve didn’t know what the big metal thing had to do with basic training, but he wasn’t a scientist after all, and Dr. Erskine certainly was. It was what he had been wanting for so long, a chance to prove himself, to even get to go through basic training, that first step in the door. He knew of course that it wouldn’t be easy, that people much fitter and healthier than himself sometimes dropped out or were dismissed despite their best efforts. He had to try though, give his all, what he wanted was a chance, and now it sounded like he had one. “I’m ready now, anytime, you can count on me.”  
  
Dr. Erskine sat back in his chair, eyebrows almost as high up on his face as when he’d regarded the packed chart in the alley. “I do not believe I have ever heard someone quite so excited to go through basic training, and yes, that is where you will go, and I will be joining you, to watch your progress. I believe you have what it is I have been seeking. General Phillips may disagree with me, but I have faith in what I have seen in you, Steve.”   
  
It felt so good to hear that, to hear someone had looked at him and seen something, what, he didn’t know. “You said that before, but why me? Why pick me to do all this? What have you been looking for?” He asked, almost afraid to hear the answer, that Erskine would say something cruel, that this was all somehow a ruse, or maybe a dream.

“I have chosen you because you are a good man, a good alpha, and I have a belief you will continue to prove my hypothesis correct.” Perhaps Erskine had not known it, perhaps he had not known how much Steve needed to hear those words in that moment, in that particular time in his life, but they hit home nonetheless. Steve didn’t know how much he believed it, but it still lit him up on the inside, made some ragged piece of himself he’d been ignoring feel whole and new. 

* * *

  
  
The drive back home to his apartment was as surreal, the climb up to his door seeming unreal even as he turned the key and stepped over the threshold. He spent an hour laid up in his bed with his bottle of hot water wrapped in towels before he brought himself to begin packing. There wasn’t much to bring, but his pastels bought with his own hard work, and his expensive heavy-weight drawing paper were the first to be carefully stowed away. His suit went next, it was a little short in the ankles, but he had not been able to afford a new one, and it was in good shape, no moth eaten holes or stray threads.   
  
Dr. Erskine had told him his things would be safe, had assured him his possessions would be placed in a warehouse to be reclaimed upon his return, and allied victory in the war. Steve trusted that to be true, but the thought of leaving Sarah’s portrait and the few faded photographs of his father he had was still difficult. He packed those feelings away though, as surely as he had his tears during Sarah’s funeral. 

There was of course, the very real possibility that he would die, whether on the battlefield, or even during whatever plans Dr. Erskine and the government had for him, but then he’d be dead, and hopefully seeing his ma’ in the flesh, or maybe the spirit, or however the afterlife worked. Steve smiled at the thought of Sarah grabbing him by the ears and telling him he’d been supposed to live to be a hundred at least.  
  
The next morning he called on the De Rossi’s, telling them he was shipping out soon, and not to worry when his visits and gym training sessions stopped. They held him together, prayed for his safety, and had made him a breakfast feast fit for a king. It was bittersweet, they were both proud of him, that much was obvious, but they were afraid too. He thought of their pictures of Eleonora, the empty seat at the dining room table, and he hoped he wouldn’t become an empty seat too.  
  
His landlord was a different story, sniffing derisively and telling him he’d be shipped back home before the month was up, and not to expect his apartment to be there when he got back. Steve took great pleasure in telling him to stow it, and even greater pleasure when the ritzy Packard showed up to collect him. Maybe it might have been just a little petty to wave at old Mister Boone as they’d pulled away from the curb, but he was confident he’d either make it or die trying, and maybe he was just a little bit of a hothead too.  
  
It was the last time he felt true confidence for a while.  
  
Camp Lehigh was as far from home as he’d ever been. Even though there were others all around, it was still an isolating experience in many ways. Steve stuck out there like a sore thumb; surrounded by alphas and betas stronger than him, healthier in every way, Steve found himself at the back of marching formations, he struggled with exercises, and nothing in his training with Lorenzo could have prepared him for real hand to hand instruction with a drill sergeant breathing down his neck. The tincture Dr. Erskine had given him for the bronchitis had helped tremendously, but it couldn’t make up for every other ache and pain Steve had carried with him for as long as he could remember. Still, he stuck it out, he had to do better, to show them all he belonged there, that he’d do anything to serve, to be a good protector, the kind of alpha he’d always wanted to be. He wouldn’t squander this chance, no matter how much his body hurt when he fell into his bed in the barracks at night.

The barracks themselves were a whole new experience as well. The beds were wide enough for two to three cadets to squeeze into them at the same time, he often saw a pair of betas, or alpha and beta cadets curled up together at night after a particularly difficult day. When first settling in, Steve asked out of curiosity, if anyone was worried about getting a bun in their oven, all betas could carry a child, or get another beta in the family way, and that seemed just a little like a bad idea, omegas could carry children too, but it was a little more complicated and there were just so few of them anyway. But he’d seen some roaming hands at night, heard people taking comfort in each other. He’d become a damn deep sleeper lately, and it wasn’t his business anyway, he’d just been curious. One of the cadets had assured him there was no danger of that, suppressants and birth control were passed out to any beta that wanted them, and encouraged for any beta-or even potentially omega- wanting to use the extra space in their or another’s bed. Alphas of course were not really encouraged to take suppressants, while it made civilian life much easier for an unbonded alpha, it made a soldier more vulnerable, and vulnerable was the opposite of what was needed on the battlefield. 

It was nice though, having a bigger bed. Sarah’s bed back in his apartment had been larger than his own, but Steve could never bring himself to sleep in it, so his cramped and sagging twin mattress had been where he continued to lay his head. This new bed in the barracks felt almost luxurious, even though it was rock solid, and the pillow kind of felt like it might have been stuffed with munitions. He heard officers got even bigger beds, and certainly nicer mattresses at least. He wondered if General Phillips got a king size. 

General Phillips was a story in himself, stern and eagle eyed, he watched over all the cadets in a way that made even the cockiest of them pause. Steve didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he and Dr. Erskine often stood watch while the cadets all trained. Steve knew enough about the military to know generals typically did not pay a whole lot of attention to cadets, but it was clear he and Dr. Erskine were highly invested. They didn’t say much, and it was unnerving as all get out, but it definitely made Steve try even harder, put his best foot forward, for what it was worth. 

“Ey Rogers, budge over yeah, you’re hogging the whole bed.” Contemplation interrupted, Steve looked up to see Cadet Hayward standing there dressed down to her pajamas. “C’mon, move your skinny rear.” She said, clambering in when he shook his head and scooted over. He was soon enveloped in her octopus’ embrace, but it was nice, having someone warm to settle his restless mind. It wasn’t romantic at all, and anyway there were plenty of dyads and triads out there where romance never entered into the equation. Cadet Hayward was nice too, too bad she was from Boston, or they mighta had something.   
  
“I might be skinny, but your elbows could make a man comatose, what were they feeding you off in Beantown anyway, stork eggs?” He earned himself an elbow in the side for his lip, and laughed, elbowing her back.

“Do not besmirch my motherland, Rogers, nor impinge on the honor of my blessed Redsox, amen.” She said it with such seriousness Steve couldn’t help but keep needling her, especially since it had the tendency to make her laugh.  
  
“I’ll besmirch all I like, you’re the one that climbed into my bed, Hayward.” He griped, not without fondness. Hayward just rolled her eyes, snuggling a little closer. She was quiet for a few minutes, long enough for Steve to think she had fallen asleep, but she finally spoke, quieter than he’d really ever heard her.  
  
“You don’t really cuddle up much do you, kinda weird, you’re one of the only alphas here too. Say, you got any idea what General Phillips and Doc are looking for? They make my skin itch with all that staring.” It was the most subdued he’d ever heard her, not that they had known each other long, but Steve had yet to have seen her anything less than completely sure of herself.

“They didn’t really tell me much, I know we’re here about qualifying for some fancy program, but it’s all Greek to me.” Steve said, patting Hayward’s hand when she grunted in affirmation.

“Yeah that’s what I thought, whatever, Rogers, I’ll qualify before you.” He could see her grin in the semi darkness in the room, and he grinned back, making like he was going to scoot her out of the bed, but only managing to shift her a few inches. “Aw don’t get lousy on me!” She said, and Steve settled back, prepared to let her pointy elbows poke him all night if need be. She wasn’t an alpha, she was a beta, but betas needed comfort too, and from what he knew Hayward came from a huge family, he bet she missed climbing into a big family nest and cuddling the night away. It was the least he could do, even if Hayward _was_ a Redsox fan.

The next few weeks of training were some of the hardest in Steve’s life, but he didn’t quit. With the war on, they didn’t have the luxury of taking it slow. Steve watched as one after another, fellow cadets quit or were disqualified based upon whatever mysterious criteria General Phillips and Dr. Erskine saw fit. Some of them were moved to regular basic, and Steve still saw them in the distance from time to time, running drills, but most left altogether. If he was being honest with himself, Steve didn’t know why he hadn’t been packed off home. He was slower than the other cadets, weaker, but day after day he was not asked to leave. He learned how to shoot, how to identify and take a gun apart and put it back together, he learned how to use his body weight to take someone larger than himself down, and he learned how to stretch his senses further than he ever had, but all that couldn’t make up for the fact that he was the odd one out. He wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth though, so he kept trying, kept giving it his all.

They were doing a routine training exercise, a few privates from the main part of Camp Lehigh stood at attention as they were passed modified 1903 Springfield rifles. It was cold out, the chill crept in even through Steve’s coat, his breath left him in white vaporous clouds as he lined up outside with his fellow cadets. They were to be shot at with non lethal bullets, it sounded a little nutso to Steve, but he supposed they’d be getting shot at by the real thing soon anyway, so maybe it _did_ make a lot of sense after all. That thought rapidly fled his mind as he noticed something was very wrong. The private lining up to shoot at Cadet Waters had loaded a live clip into his magazine. Steve thought he might have been mistaken, but the gold gleam of real bullets was no illusion.

Steve felt his heart kick up, the world sharpened, colors saturated, and everything seemed to slow as he watched the private take aim. This was it. He thought, as he broke parade rest. He heard General Phillips yell something, but he paid it no mind. He wasn’t going to make it to the frontlines, he was going to die in basic, he thought almost half hysterically. It didn’t matter, he had to protect his fellow cadet, even if Waters was an asshole, he didn’t deserve to get shot like a sitting duck.   
  
Steve tackled Waters with as much force as he could without causing injury as shots rang out. He curled around the much larger beta, bracing himself for the gunshots, making sure to cover the other cadet with as much of his body as he could. Waters himself seemed to realize they were being shot at with live rounds, stopped struggling, and started cursing.  
  
“Stoppit, I got you, I got you, you don’t have to worry.” Steve said, aware his voice was shaking, that his eyes were wild and dilated with the rush. Strange, even with the way his body was singing, he should still have felt an impact, the pressure from being shot, but he felt nothing. Slowly he raised his head, looking around to see the other cadets had scattered out wide. General Phillips was standing beside the private with the live rounds, but he was staring at Steve. Beneath him Waters swore again, raked a hand over his face, and pushed Steve off of himself with trembling hands. Steve checked him over, patting every part of Waters to make sure he wasn’t bleeding somewhere.

“I’m fine, Rogers, I’m fine.” Waters said, and promptly passed out.  
  
“Hey, what in the hell was that?” Steve called out, nearly jumping as he realized Dr. Erskine and General Phillips were much closer than they had been before. General Phillips grunted, fixing Steve with a sharp glare that still somehow looked vaguely approving, more approving than Steve had ever seen him look at any rate. On most other fellas that would have probably rated as a grimace.

“That was a test, cadet, good job.” He turned to Dr. Erskine, clapping him on the shoulder and leaning in to whisper, a whisper Steve’s buzzing ears still caught “He’s still too skinny.” He said, and strode off to do whatever it was generals did when they weren’t terrorizing new cadets. Steve blinked up at Dr. Erskine, who offered him an encouraging smile and knelt down to press his fingers against Waters’ neck.  
  
“A test, what?” Steve said, bewildered beyond belief. On the ground, Waters groaned and slowly sat up with Erskine’s assistance.

“Come now, you’re coming to the infirmary,” He said to Waters, then turned to address Steve, “and you, Mister Rogers, I will speak with you this evening.” Usually that kind of statement preceded a dressing down in Steve’s experience, but somehow Dr. Erskine’s tone made it seem warm, that Steve had done well.

* * *

Dr. Erskine arrived shortly after sundown, and with him came even more confusion. He was being shipped back to New York, he’d been chosen. There had been a terrible sinking moment when Steve thought he failed somehow, that his landlord was right after all. Dr. Erskine assured him that was not the case, and that he would explain further back at headquarters.

“There are eyes everywhere.” He had said, clasping Steve’s shoulder. It was an ominous statement, one Steve remembered later, when catastrophe struck, but at that moment he could only nod. 

At least he didn’t have much to pack up, he mused, slinging the standard issue duffel with his life in it over his shoulder while climbing the ramp up to the plane set to bring him towards his destiny. The plane ride was somber, Steve caught Dr. Erskine’s gaze multiple times when he looked up from sketching. Steve added a little doodle of the scientist while he was at it, and Dr. Erskine laughed when he caught sight of it in the sketchpad.

“I am surprised you did not attend an art school.” He said later, sitting across from Steve in the hidden barracks at headquarters. He finally knew why he was there at headquarters, why so much secrecy shrouded everything surrounding Dr. Erskine’s work. After so long being told he was not what the army wanted, he would have his chance, provided he lived through the procedure. It was daunting to think about, no matter how Steve turned it over in his mind, but he was determined not to let everyone down.   
  
“Couldn’t afford it, maybe one day, after the war is over.” Steve was aware that his survival was anything but assured, but relentless optimism and perseverance had gotten him this far. It was a nice thought, having both the time and the money to attend a university, to sit and learn about the old masters. On his own, he had read about history and art voraciously, but it would have been nice to have a degree or two.

“Yes, perhaps, after this war is over, you can live another life. Perhaps we both will.” Dr. Erskine leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. There was something in his expression, hope, regret, fear. Steve wondered if Dr. Erskine himself believed either one of them would survive the war, or that Steve would even survive the coming day. 

“Why did you choose me?” Steve asked, after the silence between them stretched on. The building around them was alive with activity, scientists and personnel preparing for something important: Project Rebirth, him, he supposed. “I just don’t really understand is all, there were better soldiers there than me, and I kind of got the impression General Phillips wasn’t too keen on an alpha, for this.” That and, he often looked a little teary eyed when Steve was doing drills, as if watching Steve struggle was ruining his entire day. 

“That is true, I was not seeking an alpha, but an alpha is what I found.” Dr. Erskine paused before continuing to speak, holding Steve’s gaze with his own. “Rebirth will change you, the serum, it will amplify what is inside you already. You are an alpha, it will take everything about that and make it more, be that for good or for ill.” It sounded as if he spoke from experience, some deep personal knowledge of that reality. “In a beta it is safer, the same biological imperatives are not written into them, so no, I was not seeking an alpha, someone in my mind who would be accustomed to strength. The serum can unlock things in an alpha, even in one who is not cruel, that is why I chose betas, it was safer, you see.”  
  
“Then why me?” Steve repeated, not understanding how this made him a good candidate in the slightest.

“There was another alpha, one other, a man named Johann Schmidt, the serum destroyed him.” Dr. Erskine shook his head, his lips twisting into a semi grimace, “what there was to destroy. He was already cruel, evil, working for Hydra, a crushing arm of the Nazis. The serum, it made him stronger, madder, it took the alpha’s desire to protect and twisted it into a mad desire to subjugate, to rule.” It was a horrifying story, and a terrifying thought, that something could taint the drives an alpha had, he could not imagine wishing to hold a power of that kind.

“Put me down, if that happens to me, I don’t, I can’t live like that.” Steve said, surprising even himself with the vehemence in his tone.

“No, I do not believe this will happen to you, that is why I chose you. You and Schmidt could not be more different, you have proved this, time and again.” Dr. Erskine sounded real sure of that, Steve wished he had that certainty. Dr. Erskine continued, speaking in his slow measured way, it would almost have been calming, had the subject matter not been so dire. “This, the serum, strength, power, was something he already wanted, something he was already actively working for, something he felt he deserved, but the serum amplified it, gave it greater power, and moreover gave him the power to do what he always felt entitled to. He never had any respect for strength, because he had always had it, it was his right you see, in his mind, it was owed to him.”

Steve couldn’t wrap his head around it, wanting something like that, seeking something like that. Objectively he knew there were evil people in the world. He had met a few in his time, but nothing like what Dr. Erskine was describing. An alpha like that was even more incomprehensible. Alphas were supposed to protect, to form the cornerstone of a nation’s defensive capabilities, or protect their loved ones, on a smaller scale. Even, historically, in the times Before, when humans spent all their days warring and scraping for territory, alphas were there to protect their people. An alpha serving the Nazis though, that wasn’t protection, that was an unspeakable evil. He couldn’t imagine how Dr. Erskine must have felt, seeing his work empowering such a monster. That he could sit before Steve and offer that same work to him then, Steve could not imagine what he had done to earn that trust.

“You have known what it is to be weak, and you will not forget what a privilege it is to be strong.” Erskine reached over, squeezed Steve’s shoulder. “That is why I have chosen you, not because you are a good soldier, or a strong alpha, but because you are a good man.”

Steve swallowed the lump of emotion in his throat. It was a lot of trust, it didn’t escape his notice that he had the hopes of countless people riding on the success of the coming day. He hoped that trust would not be unfounded. 

No matter how certain Dr. Erskine seemed, how rock solid he was in his belief, Steve did not sleep that night. He sketched for hours, stopping in between to pace the room. He was afraid yes, but that fear would not stop him. Even if upon the morning arriving, walking into the room where he would either transform or possibly die made his hands tremble. He still stepped into the Vita Ray chamber and allowed Dr. Erskine and his colleagues to enclose him within it. He knew the whole procedure was being watched, that a room full of top military brass sat beyond the glassed in surgical theater walls. No pressure. He thought to himself as the first battery of injections bubbled through his veins.

It was like nothing he had ever experienced. His body went cold first, then hot, his senses expanded and retracted, he felt both hyper aware and slow as molasses, and his body burned as if someone had stuck cables beneath his skin. Alarms sounded everywhere, his vision washed white, then red, and his heart tripped out a jagged rhythm, somewhere someone was making a racket. For long moments he lost track of time, to the way his body shifted and grew. Steve thought he might have blacked out for a moment, when he opened his eyes, he was being helped out of the Vita Ray machine. It was strange, after such an ordeal, he expected to feel terrible, but he did not. He felt good, better than he had ever felt, every ache and pain his body had carried since childhood was gone. Steve took a deep breath and blew it out easily. Wow.

The enjoyment of the successful transformation was short lived however. Dr. Erskine had been killed by an inside spy. Steve had chased the spy down, seen him die, but that had not made holding Dr. Erskine’s body any easier. One of the first people who believed in him, and he failed.  
  
He was grimly satisfied to be sent on missions within the United States after that. There were spies holed up within their cities, state officials and people who played at being innocent civilians. Steve took no pleasure in killing people, but these were Nazis, people who sought to destroy societies, to commit mass genocide and acts of evil so vile that Steve wondered how they could call themselves human at all. 

His new body was tireless, he could run without losing his breath, scale walls, perform feats even the most highly trained military operatives would never dream of. With Dr. Erskine’s death and the loss of the serum, the military knew it needed another way to sway public opinion into full support of the war. There was still an alarming amount of support for the damned Nazis in the states. Support Steve set about destroying with the movie pictures made based on his missions. They were dramatic things, full of patriotism and bravery, Steve found them more than a little overblown, but they did their job, or so he heard.  
  
He became an icon seemingly overnight, doors that had always been closed were opened to him with a glance. Realizing he was being flirted with was a revelation, not that he really reciprocated at first. People looked at his body covetously, but that wasn’t what he wanted, not by a longshot. Still, it was nice to be desired, even if it wasn’t really Steve Rogers that they wanted. All of that could not balance out the way he felt after missions. He never spoke of it, but the serum had changed him in ways it took some time for him to understand. The rush after a fight, where once it had ebbed away, it stayed, and stayed. 

He rested little, and slept less, the only pause in it was found wrapped in the arms of fellow soldiers, when it got to be too much and he absolutely had to seek the comfort of another person. There were of course omegas trained specifically, specialized therapists for battle fatigued alphas and betas coming back from the frontlines. He wasn’t on the frontlines though, there was no reason he couldn’t deal with this on his own. Putting in a request to see an omega just so they could give him some peace for a little while was ridiculous. There were alphas and betas coming back from the war missing limbs, what the hell did he have to complain about? That and his instincts, everything that made an alpha an alpha, it was ramped up in him, made more. He worried that an omega touching him would be hurt by it somehow, that it would be too much, that the energy and emotional transfer from him would leave them broken in some way. He couldn't risk it, no matter how much the idea appealed to him, how much he longed for it.

There was something else too. Growing up in constant pain and illness, in the past there had been little time or energy for him to think about sex. The serum had changed that, and changed it drastically. There was no pain anymore, nothing stopping his mind from traveling that path. He was nineteen years old and suddenly given a body that did not tire. He thought about sex a lot, so much he probably would have gone to confession had he been back home. Sex wasn’t frowned upon, but excess in it was, and he was sure he was committing the sin of lust nightly, just by himself. Sitting in bars in low smoky light, he found his glances reciprocated more often than not. It took him months to finally take someone up on an offer for a nightcap. This new body was so strong. He routinely bent metal with his hands, he’d snapped a neck with as little effort as it had taken him to open a damn beer bottle before the serum. He was terrified he’d seriously injure any person nice enough to show him a good time. That and, as his fellow soldiers felt no compunction in telling him, his cock had gotten bigger along with the rest of him. Even an omega might have struggled in taking him, but that was not really on the table. All the omegas he met while out had been taken, wedded or steady gloves covering their arms up to their elbows, fingers covered in jewelry and, their arms looped through their partner or partners’ elbows. 

He ended up tumbling into bed with a beta. He was as handsome a fella as Steve had ever met, shorter than Steve was, with pretty brown eyes and auburn hair. His scent was muted by suppressants, but he’d still smelled like fresh lavender and woods while draped over Steve’s back. He’d been surprised when Steve hadn’t wanted to do the pitching so to speak, but he’d gamely brought Steve off three times anyway. Steve had laid there afterwards tingling and gasping and wondered how people ever got anything else done when they had a partner. 

As nice as that had been, the way he’d curled around Steve afterward had been almost as nice. The warmth of another person, the steadiness of his breathing, Steve’s body had synced to it, and he’d slept well that night for once. He’d even made breakfast for them in the morning, what a guy.

It was short lived, but it had been a one time sort of thing anyway. It didn’t break Steve’s heart, but later, back at his hotel where he was staking out another Goddamned spy, he missed the calming presence of another person beside him.   
  
There were others after that, nothing serious, just two people taking pleasure and enjoyment from each other. It was nice, and not something Steve ever thought he would get to do. He tried his best to show his partners the best time he could, even if he’d very likely never see them again. It helped to keep him from getting too sleep deprived, and it kept him from taking up the valuable time of the omegas working in military hospitals. It was good, it was working, it was fine. Except for the fact of course that he was still in the states. The war was raging in full now, Steve read the papers whenever he could get his hands on them. He got the feeling General Phillips was going to start pitching typewriters at him the next time he inquired about being sent overseas. 

The time finally arrived, a little less than a year after becoming Captain America, on the heels of receiving the shield from President Roosevelt himself-and gosh that had been surreal beyond imagining-he was introduced to one Bucky Barnes. He was just a few years younger than Steve, former unofficial camp Le High mascot, and a mouthy, scrappy little alpha the likes of which a pre-serum Steve Rogers would have gotten along with like a house on fire. He’d looked up at Steve as if he’d hung the moon in the sky, and Steve had vowed to keep him as safe as he possibly could. Not that Bucky really needed his help, as it turned out. He was a bigger handful than a bag of angry ferrets, a fantastic marksman, cocky and willing to jump into a fire for a friend at a moment’s notice-and Steve wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

The Invaders felt the same about him, when they at last made it over to Europe-although Namor would very likely never admit it. Old Imperius Rex had some kind of mental block when it came to paying anything other than the most backhanded of compliments. Steve didn’t take it personally, Namor was like that to everyone, and his tiny little briefs made up for a lot of his personality. 

Europe was far more embattled than the states, which were kept safer by their isolation. There was very little time to rest. They were needed everywhere at once it seemed, moving from one mission to the next with an unstoppable velocity. His alpha rushes became more pronounced, one bleeding into another until he could rest back at camp, wherever that was at the time. Cold and shivering in his tent with a water bottle made hot by the fire and wrapped in whatever spare fabric he could find, Steve thought again of what it might have been like to have an omega curled around him. He imagined it might be warm, that it would feel like laying in the sunshine on the first day of summer. It didn’t need to be sexual either, it just would have been nice, to feel himself relax, to be able to fall into a deep dreamless sleep where the slightest sound didn’t rouse him to his feet like the walking dead. Steve said nothing though, his wounds healed quickly, he could never fall ill, he was a good protector at last, everything an alpha should be, complaining that there was no one to cuddle hardly seemed like a matter of national security.

Still he scooted a little closer while Torch flamed bright and roasted a few sausage links for the Invaders to eat. They were far behind enemy lines, dug out in the snow. The cold did not affect him as it once had, but even so, Steve still felt it creeping in, remembered his drafty apartment in the lower east side. His teeth chattered, and Jim flared a little brighter, baked off more heat. Jim never said anything about it, but Steve got the idea he saw a lot more than he let on. Steve appreciated the discretion, and the sun baked scent of ozone he always left behind.

Meeting Johann Schmidt, The Redskull the first time left Steve in a rush that lasted three days. He was vile, disgusting in ways Steve could not and did not want to ever understand. Everything about the man-if he could even be called that-was grotesque. From his ugly mug to his vomitous ideology. There was clear madness in his eyes, but also far too much intelligence as well, and not a shred of human decency or compassion, or anything redeeming left in him, if there ever had been. Steve would have called him a clown, or maybe a donkey’s rear end, but frankly that was insulting to both clowns and donkeys’ rear ends, and not nearly vulgar enough for how Steve felt about the ugly son of a canker sore. 

The first few times their paths crossed, Steve had given his all to kill Schmidt, but he was like a cockroach, slipping through Steve’s fingers every time he’d thought they had him. He and Bucky and the Invaders ran missions between their confrontations with Redskull, but he was always at the back of Steve’s mind. Finding the camps had only made that fury greater. Bucky cried for days after the first one, the sight of so much human suffering, and the very idea that people could be that cruel to each other had shaken them all to their core. Of course Steve’s top secret security clearance meant he had been briefed on them, but seeing them in person made it more real, more horrifying than any clinically printed packet ever could have. There had been alpha soldiers patrolling the camps, that in itself made Steve retch when he thought about it. How could they? How could they have done such a thing? Alphas were protectors, warriors, not torturers of the innocent. 

There were no omegas in the camps, the Nazis had no use for their compassion, for their empathy. However, they were too valuable to kill, but too dangerous to the party’s demonic rhetoric to allow free movement. There were pamphlets, posters of Nazi propaganda that spoke of omegas in glowing tones, how they had been sequestered away for their own safety, how they supported the AXIS powers, Steve knew it was all a lie. All known omegas had been shipped to Nuremberg before the war began, so Steve fought for them too, with Bucky furious and just as determined at his side. It was his purpose, his goal above all other goals. It made his rushes stronger, his drive to stamp out everything the Nazis stood for burned within him even while he clutched his ineffectual hot water bottle behind enemy lines. He couldn’t rest, not while those camps existed, not while such flagrant atrocities were being committed. 

Rut, his alpha cycle, was stronger as well, that drive to protect ratcheted up to new heights. It made him stronger, he had ripped the gun clean off of a tank after it shot at Toro, and then flung it into another tank, easy as anything. Later, as he stood on the battlefield, panting and covered in mud with his shield clenched in his hand, satisfaction still eluded him.

It continued to elude him as the war dragged on, but he only fought harder, be they Hydra, or plain old Nazi scum, Steve introduced them to his shield and bitter defeat. There was little time for warm companionship behind enemy lines, or hunkered down in London while air raid sirens sounded. So he contented himself with making sure those under his command were safe. He salved injuries, offered encouragement, and made speeches when it was needed. The latter was his least favorite, but everyone said he was a dab hand at it, that he was a natural speech maker, a natural leader, Steve wasn’t so sure about all of that. He never let on though, through battle after battle, even when the crash after a rush left him shaking, and his warm water bottles did nothing-and had done nothing since rebirth-he fulfilled his purpose, he was happy to. 

Just as he was happy to finally bury the Redskull beneath countless tons of a bunker when they blew it to kingdom come. Just as he was to take a leap of faith onto Baron Zemo’s damned bomb loaded drone. He was not as happy to see Bucky there with him. For all he had tried to keep Bucky safe during the war, he was not able to catch him when it mattered, and down he had gone into freezing ocean waters. There was no time to mourn, no time to do anything but cry out in grief and keep moving. Countless lives hung in the balance, and would pay if Steve hesitated. He couldn’t fail, and he had not. The bombs never made their destination, and Steve followed Bucky long after. As the water closed in, and darkness stole his vision, he only hoped he had done enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some translations:  
> a leanbh-From Old Irish lenab ("infant, babe, child; young man, youth, boy"). (a term of endearment)
> 
> Nonna-Grandmother, granny (term of endearment)
> 
> seanáthair and mhamó-terms for grandparents


	2. Million Dollar Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve wakes up, fights an old friend, and has his socks blown off by one Tony Stark. Featuring awkwardness, Steve eating his feelings, and more pining than you can shake a stick at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for Steve being VERY depressed at times and coping badly, references to the A-bombs, and canon-typical violence.
> 
> Some dialogue in parts is taken from the original 64' Avengers run, starting when Steve is found in Avengers Issue 4
> 
> Thank you once again to BLOSSOMSINTHEMIST for being amazing and continuing to read and cheer me on, and for being a font of great ideas. ILY

* * *

In the dark, Steve dreamed at times, and at others there was nothing. There was no concept of how much time passed as he laid in suspended animation within the ice. The only constant was the cold when he dreamt. He dreamed of trudging through snow, of missions in the bitterest of winters, of campfires with the Invaders that did nothing to warm any of them. Bucky was sometimes with them, but more often than not, he was slipping through Steve’s grip, plunging down into freezing cold waters. He dreamed of fire so hot he could not distinguish it from the burn of the cold, and blood, and explosions so loud they were all Steve heard sometimes for what felt like days on end.

Time passed, and Steve dreamed. The dreams shifted though, became more real at once. There was a bed beneath him, it felt real, present, the way nothing had for so long. The cold was not as breath stealing as it had been before, there was light, warm over his eyelids, and a strange buzzing sound, like tiny wings. Steve frowned, if there were bugs buzzing around him, that couldn’t bode well. He went to swing at the buzzing thing, but his limbs were heavy, clumsy as they had been after long weeks bedridden after a bout of pneumonia. 

“Hey! I’m not a bug, stop that” The voice sounded from somewhere by his left temple, then a shocked gasp, and the sound of metal against metal. “He’s waking up, he really is alive, everyone, come quick!”  
  
Had there been a fairy fluttering around his face? Was he having dreams about Tinkerbelle now? That was new, but not unwelcome. 

There were more voices exclaiming all around him, but all Steve could think about was Bucky. If he was alive then maybe Bucky was too. He struggled into sitting up, eyes wild. The world tilted before him, his eyesight blurry and warped as if he’d been sleeping for days or hit his head. He paid it no mind, lurching to his feet, a red and gold blur reached for him, but he stumbled back. The floor was warm and grated for drainage, the whole room was balmy in fact, as if he’d been taken for a temporary tropical vacation. Where in the blue blazes was he?

“Bucky! Where is he, do you have him? What have you done with him?” His senses reeled, his entire body prickled and went hot as the rush hit him. His vision cleared enough to see a giant man just in front of him. It was strange, but Steve had seen stranger. He didn’t know where his shield was, but that didn’t matter, he went after the giant anyway. 

“Thor! Iron Man! Stop him, he’s gone mad!” The giant yelled, as Steve barreled him down. There was a robot standing in his field of vision, and a tall mountain of a man that looked like a Viking. All around his face a tiny woman fluttered, calling to him in distress. Steve paused, his chest heaving. They were not trying to hurt him, they were merely trying to calm him down. Bucky was dead, Bucky was gone and he was confused and taking it out on these people, strange though they were, they had done nothing to warrant the way he lashed out. Confusion and grief warred within him, he dropped to a knee, clutching at his own hair. It was damp but drying in the warm dry air of the room. 

“Oh God,” He gasped, “Bucky, he’s dead, and nothing on Earth can change that.” A part of him was ashamed at the despair in his voice, but it didn’t really matter, did it? These were strangers to him. The robot stepped closer, cautiously, holding a hand out to him in a placating gesture, a red and gold mystery stranger than Jim Hammond. It was beautiful, a strange sleek almost liquid-like metal, shining red and gold, with glowing blue stars set into its chest, eyes and palms. “Is the war over, did we win? Where am I? How did I get here? Who are you?” He asked, lowering his fists. The Viking and the robot looked at each other, and the robot stepped closer. This close, it was clearly taller than him, he could hear something humming away all through it, as if it were innervated in some way, like living metal. Iron man they had called him, and Thor, same as the Nordic god? Steve thought he might have still been dreaming, or he would have, but even his mind was not so imaginative. 

“That’s what we were about to ask you!” Iron Man said, then tilted his head, Steve felt the strangest impression that he was being measured up. “We won the war alright, if it’s the one I think you’re asking about, but, you can’t be Captain America, can you?” Iron Man’s voice was metallic, but Steve realized suddenly that there might be a person in there. There had to be. His bearing, the hesitation in his voice, Steve didn’t think it was possible for a robot to do all that. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, a vain hope things were not so alien, that there was a man beneath all that sleek metal, that Iron Man wasn’t a robot at all. Just as that hope took root, the room tilted, alarms blared, a mechanical sounding voice declaring the presence of hostiles.

“We are under an attack most foul!” Thor cried, spinning what looked like a massive hammer in his hand and charging from the room. The others followed him, except for Iron Man, who approached holding the shield.

“I know you don’t know us, and you have no reason to help us, but, if you’d like to lend a hand, if you’re who I think you are, well, we would sure appreciate it.” He placed the shield in Steve’s grip, and then went running from the room with steps far less loud than they should have been with all that metal. Steve stared down at the shield. If they had been hostile, he highly doubted they would have been so willing to pass the shield back into his keeping. The rush was still there, buzzing under his skin as if it had never left. Steve took a deep breath and charged after Iron Man. There would be time for explanations later. This he could do.

Steve followed the sounds of fighting up to the surface. They were in a submarine of sorts. It was a sleek thing, with too many windows, and glowing lights like some kind of deep sea leviathan out of a Jules Verne novel. Steve was accustomed to submarines being cramped things, claustrophobic at the best of times, death traps at the worst. This was like nothing he had ever seen. 

The person his strange new friends were fighting, however, was. Namor was there, unchanged from the last time Steve saw him, resplendent in his tiny scaled shorts and imperious gaze. 

“Namor!” He called, “What are you doing?” His question met no answer however, and Namor himself seemed to look past Steve, through him. That wasn’t right at all. Namor had always been a bad tempered kind of fella, self assured (and boy Bucky would have had something to say about that assessment) but the look he turned on Steve was more hostile than any he had ever seen from him. 

“Accursed enemy! Attack, fight shoulder to shoulder with your prince!” Namor called. Aw dammit, those were his royal guard lining up at his back. Steve swore under his breath. 

A high whining sound broke through his contemplation. Iron Man could fly, apparently, and blast some kind of force with his hands no less. Steve clambered up onto the deck and joined the fray. And what a fray it was. Lightning crackled high in the sky, illuminating Thor where he floated above the waves, and if he’d thought the giant was big when he’d tackled him in the submarine, he was absolutely massive now; wading through the water like an icebreaker barge through the arctic. All around Namor, Wasp flew, firing off blasts and sparking lights, she was quite the sight, as were the pair of acrobats he had not yet met; a woman with flaming red hair, and an archer in a distracting amount of purple doing his best Errol Flynn impression. Steve wasn’t quite sure what help he could be, but he readied his shield and let it fly.

It was a fast fight, but no less furious in its intensity. Steve found himself falling in easily with these strange new allies. They were brave, intelligent, moving with an experience with each other which spoke of their bonds being green, but still tested and true. In the end, he knocked Namor’s diamond hard head with the shield hard enough to make his eyes roll. Their eyes had met, and recognition had shown. Namor had some choice words for him, but Steve knew him well enough to know when he was being thanked. Steve had a feeling whoever had mind controlled Namor into attacking them was about to be in a world of hurt.

“You’re welcome!” He called, as Namor hovered over the water.

“Hmph.” Namor grunted, and sank beneath the waves with his guard, just as swiftly as he had arrived.

“Friend of yours?” Iron Man asked, coming to a skipping stop next to Steve. His hands powered down with a quiet whine. Steve hoped he had some kind of cooling system in there, it was unseasonably warm, even out on the water.

“I always did like him, but we’ve been at loggerheads before. He’s mean as a hornet when he wants to be, but I don’t take it personal.” The rush was still buzzing through him, but Steve paid it no mind, there was nothing for it. Maybe his new friends could direct him to a gym when they got back from wherever it was they were.  
  
“Ya don’t say, seemed like such a nice guy. You should invite him by for sushi sometime.” Errol Flynn in purple said. He was stroking the shaft of an arrow with an air of deep contemplation.

“Hawkeye,” Iron Man said, with an equally deep air of long suffering.

“What, I know you said no fish-man jokes but c’mon.” Hawkeye held his arms out to the sky in mock supplication. Iron man just sighed. 

“Hi,” He said, turning to Steve, holding out his arm for Steve to clasp if he so chose, “we’re the Avengers, and someway, somehow, you must be Captain America.”  
  
Steve wasn’t sure why all eyes had turned to him with such disbelief, but he reached out and clasped Iron Man’s forearm just the same. “That I am, honor to meet you all.” The armor was so smooth, warm to the touch, Steve almost imagined he could feel the living, breathing person beneath it. 

“Wow.” Iron man said, looking at his arm, where Steve’s fingers had rested over gleaming metal. “I’m sorry.” Was the next thing he said. 

“What for fella? All of you were amazing just now, I don’t know where President Roosevelt has been keeping you all, but I sure am glad to meet you.”  
  
“Yeah, about that.” Iron Man said, subdued in a way Steve might have heard in a churchyard. Steve swallowed. He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “You’ve been gone a long time, Cap.” In the distance, a city was coming into view. Towering buildings dotted the landscape, but tucked within that alien labyrinth of metal and glass, the Empire State Building shone out like a beacon. “A really, really long time.”  
  
“Is that,” Steve’s voice cracked, “New York City?”

It couldn’t be, but it was. Steve’s head was spinning as they disembarked from the submarine. There were cars waiting for the Avengers, cars with no drivers, whisper quiet and humming with power. The city was huge, sprawling around them in every direction. The city he grew up in, it was a large city, but this, this was so much more. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, where once they had been the tallest around, they were dwarfed by other, taller buildings, each reaching towards the sky in spires of steel and glass. There were cars everywhere, or at least he thought they were cars. They had four wheels and steering wheels, but that was about the only way they bore any resemblance to anything he’d ever seen. He could hear honking, people yelling, sirens. Well, at least that hadn’t changed.

There were reporters gathered around, firing questions off, while the team moved towards the waiting cars. Iron Man slid smoothly in front of Steve, answering questions and holding court while Wasp went from Tinkerbelle sized to human. Where Iron Man held court, she dazzled. Both of them seemed entirely adept at handling the press. Their cameras were different than they had been in Steve’s time, but they were definitely reporters. 

“Captain, your chariot awaits.” The one he’d heard them all refer to as Black Widow said. She was compact, petite, with a gymnasts build, and a gaze that made him feel a little like a stumbling boy just out of grade school again.

“Ma’am.” He nodded, clambering into the back seat of the car. He heard Widow say something behind him, but his hearing felt strange, fuzzy. He felt out of his body almost, as if he were floating above it, unreal and cold and strange. The rush was still there, his senses were on high alert, but there was nothing to fight, nothing he could do to make the world make sense. The interior of the car smelled like his own fear, his own sweat, God he needed a shower. 

Widow climbed into the front seat of the car and spread her fingers over glowing dials, she was nice enough not to mention the scent of badly in need of a bath alpha that must have been wafting off of him. There was no steering wheel, of course there wasn’t. It was all beautiful, glowing technology, and he was lost, not in space, but in time.

“You’re coming back with us to the mansion, Captain, Tony will have a room for you.” She was speaking so calmly, gently, the way one might speak to a scared civilian, and Steve realized he was breathing far too quickly for someone just sitting down. He took a deeper breath, reached within himself to find some equilibrium, something that would calm his pounding heart. “Unless of course, you have somewhere else you would rather go?” The car slid into reverse just as Iron Man took off in a streak of red and gold. Steve watched him go until he disappeared behind a towering building in the distance. 

“No, nowhere, I,” He took another deep breath, blew it out through his nose, “who’s Tony?”

Tony, or Tony Stark, as it turned out was not only the Avengers benefactor, but also Iron Man. He greeted Steve in the garage of the biggest mansion Steve had ever seen. He was still in the armor, red and gold, like a figurine of Midas made real, but as welcoming a host as he had ever met. He gave Steve an abbreviated tour of the place, while helpfully not mentioning how badly Steve’s hands were trembling.

“Sorry I didn’t make the ride back with you, I was making sure I had a room set up for you, got to take care of my guests, you know how it is.” He raised a hand as if he was about to reach out to Steve, then pulled it back, pointing at another doorway and explaining it led down to a training room. Steve privately wished Iron Man had touched him. The armor was so warm, and he was beginning to feel the cold creep of the drop even more keenly.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve said faintly, as they climbed a massive marble double staircase trimmed in gold. They walked down a long hallway with rooms radiating from it like spokes in a wheel. The doors were numbered, and labeled. There was a vase on a marble topped table Steve had once seen in a museum. 

“Here we are, I ah, hope you like it, it’s one of the more subdued rooms. Jarvis helped me pick it, he said you might be more comfortable here.” He trailed off, stepping out of the way so Steve could open the door and walk into the room in question. Steve kicked his boots off while looking around, not wishing to track anything around on the plush, expensive looking carpet. The room was huge, bigger than his apartment in the lower east side, with a king size bed covered in blankets and pillows, and even a comfortable sitting area arranged around a window seat. 

“Jarvis?” Steve asked, his ears were ringing, his palms felt clammy. 

“My butler, but he’s family, so what do you think, should I tell him it’s a success?” Iron Man asked, rocking a little bit on his heels in a movement that asked for approval. Steve wondered how the guy could be uncertain when He’d just offered Steve the nicest place he’d ever stayed in. Two weeks ago he had been sleeping in a tent in the woods, and Steve told him so. He just brushed it off, saying it was not a big deal, and showed him the door to his bathroom, his own private bathroom. 

“Is there anything else you need, anything else I can get you?” Iron man asked, he was close, almost close enough to touch. Steve desperately wished they had been close enough to where it wouldn’t have seemed too strange for them to huddle together. He had done it so many times after a rush, during the war. And wasn’t that something, the war was over, had been over for decades. Steve sank down to sit on the bed. The trembling was only getting worse. It was warm outside, but Steve only felt the ice.

“You got a Monet you could hang over my bed, might make it more homey.” Steve said, only half joking. Iron man seemed to pause. “No, no fella I was kidding, this is wonderful, thank you, it’s perfect, really.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Anything he could have asked for was either impossible, or far too familiar to ask of a person he barely knew.

“I might be pressing, and you can tell me to fuck off if this is too presumptuous, but you seem cold, can I get you something for that?” He said, in that same tone Widow had spoken to him earlier. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve such gentleness and consideration, but it sure felt nice over his ragged nerves.

“Yeah,” He said thickly, “yeah that would be real nice.”

“Okay, sure thing, yeah, sit tight, don’t move, I’ll be right back!” Iron Man said, and spun on his heel, really quite gracefully. As sleek as the armor was, Steve had seen the way it punched, it had to weigh a whole hell of a lot. He went haring off into the hallway, Steve heard his steps receding away, and distant movement somewhere down the hall. He wondered if there was a linen closet down that way. The floor was warm. Steve blinked, pressing his feet more tightly against the carpet. It was definitely heated, and getting warmer, he wondered if Iron Man had done that somehow. 

His wondering was interrupted by Iron Man’s return. He was holding a large navy blue blanket bundled in his arms. “Here we go, special delivery.” Iron Man stepped up close, unfolding the blanket and beginning to tuck it around Steve’s seated form. It was warm, really warm, and smelled of something metallic, and woodsy and spiced. Oh. He wondered if it belonged to Iron Man himself, to Tony Stark. Steve covertly tucked the blanket a little closer as it heated further. Tony Stark was probably an alpha then, if his blankets smelled like that. Steve felt his ears go a little red. He’d cuddled plenty of other alphas after a rush, bedded a few too. He wondered if Iron Man was coming down from a rush at the moment just as he was. 

“Hey thanks, real swell of you, I just,” Steve struggled to put it into words, his gratitude, and what he wanted, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t ask anything more of Iron Man, he’d already asked for enough. He was letting Steve stay in his house for Chrissakes. “Thanks, you’re a real pal, I’m lucky you all found me.” He looked up at Iron Man, who had gone utterly still for a moment. He tucked the blanket over Steve’s arm and squeezed his shoulder.

“It’s our pleasure, my pleasure, anything you need, just ask, if I’m not awake, come get me. I’ll need to get you an Avengers comm too, you can always call on me through that too.” It was a lot, that much kindness and consideration. Steve bunched the blanket around his hands, and put his best smile on. The one Bucky said made him look like a real stand up kind of fella. 

“I don’t know, I’ve missed out on a lot, I might ask you for history lessons.” He tried for levity, he really did, but it still came out more than a little shaky. Iron Man just squeezed his shoulder again.

“Hey, anytime, I mean it. If I’m not in my room-down the hall last door at the end-then I’m in the lab, anyone can direct you.” He stepped back after that, and went to leave. For a moment he stood in the threshold of the room as if gripped by some internal debate, but he just gave a tiny wave, and then turned to leave. 

After Iron man left, Steve sat. He didn’t know for how long. Minutes blurred together as he stared out the window with unseeing eyes. The rush had ebbed, but for him it never fully left, and so he felt a clammy sort of sickness, his body poised at the edge of a cliff, perpetually unable to truly relax. It couldn’t have helped that he’d gone into the ice while in a rush either. 

The ice. 

Steve shivered, pulling the blanket over his head and falling over onto the mattress on his side. Seventy years gone, just like that, within the blink of an eye. How did you even come to grips with something like that? Everything he’d known, everyone he’d loved. Steve clapped a hand over his mouth. He was shaking apart, curling into himself the way he might behind the shield to save him from a blast. The shield could not save him now. It was still on his back, and Steve sobbed, rolled up to sit and slung it off his shoulders to thump onto the floor. He didn’t know what to do. Seventy years, _seventy years_. So many promises he’d made and not kept. So he had become an empty seat at the De Rossi’s table after all. Oh how Nonna would have scolded him. At least they had won the war, that was one less regret, he didn’t know what he would have done if that had not been the case, if he had failed everyone that badly.

“God,” He shuddered, his face was wet. He pulled the cowl off, tossed it atop the shield. His hair was drenched with sweat, but he was still cold, his teeth chattering audibly in the quiet of the room. He was getting sweat all over Iron Man’s fancy heated blanket. It didn’t even need a cord, of course it didn’t, because it had been seventy years. Steve stifled the hysterical laugh bubbling in his throat. He had to get it together, falling apart like a house of cards was doing him no favors, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. He laid there shaking and clutching the blanket around himself until a soft knock sounded at the bedroom door.

“Excuse me, Captain Rogers, may I come in?” Whoever it was they were a Brit. Steve lurched up to sit, schooling his features into something he hoped looked neutral.

“Sure, let yourself in, door’s open.” It wasn’t up to his usual standards. He would have gotten up, opened the door for his guest and welcomed them in, but at that moment it was almost too much effort to even be upright.

The door swung open, and a rather austere looking gentleman walked in. He had steel grey hair, and a gentle face. A small rolling tray accompanied him, topped with a steaming teapot, a milk jug, sugar, and some very fine looking cups. Jarvis, it had to be. Steve had never had a butler around, but this had to be the fella. 

“Thank you, Captain Rogers, Master Tony informed me you might be in the need of a pick me up. I have made you what I make him when he is feeling under the weather. There are extra cups, and fresh tea, should you find it not to your liking.” He rolled the tray right up to the bed, almost as if he knew Steve was in no shape to get up, plucked the full mug from the tray, and passed it into Steve’s hands. The cup was so warm, it smelled like chamomile and honey. Steve curled his hand around the mug, tucking it against his chest.

“Thank you.” He said quietly. “I’m sure it’s a treat Mister ah, Jarvis I think?”

“How polite, you must teach Master Tony some manners, although it is probably far too late for that.” Jarvis smiled slightly, Steve got the idea he was joking in a very subtle, understated sort of way. “Yes, Jarvis is correct. Would you like me to stay with you, or would you prefer to be alone?” Jarvis was looking at him utterly without judgement, as if he was used to seeing people sweaty with their teeth chattering every day. Steve almost told him he wanted company, but he was sure Mister Jarvis had better things to do than tending to an old soldier while they fell apart.

“Thanks for the tea, I appreciate it, I’ll just uh,” Steve didn’t need to say anymore, Jarvis nodded, backing towards the door.

“I’ll leave you to it then, if you have a need of me I will not be far.” Jarvis said, nodding towards him.

After Jarvis left, Steve took a sip of the tea. It was chamomile as he had thought. It was sweet though, with a soft herbaceous wildflower honey in it, and a hint of lemon. Steve drank it all, and then refilled the mug with more. It took some tweaking, but he got the fresh cup tasting the same as Jarvis’ version. He drank it slowly, until just the dregs were left, the heat ebbed away, and then he dragged himself off to the bathroom to finally take that shower.

The shower itself was astoundingly luxurious, especially given the last time he’d had one it had been in a barrack. The floors and walls were done up in a pale green stone that looked almost translucent, milky and swirled with deeper green tones. It was heated too, the floor warm beneath his bare feet. He stayed under the spray until even his skin flushed red, and his fingers started to prune. The linen closet was full of huge fluffy towels so obscenely soft, Steve wondered if they were made from some heretofore unknown fabric. 

Back in the room, there was a neatly folded stack of clothes with a little note atop them written in sharp geometric print. “ _Hi Steve, realized you don’t have any changes of clothes, these are some sweats a friend of mine left over here, they look like they might fit you too-T.S.”_ There was a little stick figure Iron Man drawn by the initials. Steve couldn’t help but smile. He supposed if he had to have lost seventy years, there was no one better to have found him.  
  
The sweatpants and shirt were soft too, lined with fleece on the inside. They smelled recently laundered, but the hint of a sweet sort of scent clung to them. He wondered if Tony’s friend had been an omega. At least he wouldn’t get them all smelly now, he mused, as he pulled them on. It was like being wrapped in a blanket, Steve hoped Tony would let him keep them.

He tried to sleep, but found he could not. His mind was racing, and his body was not yet ready to rest. He’d been asleep for decades, that made sense, and he was afraid, if he really examined the feeling. He was afraid if he closed his eyes another seventy years would pass, and then where would he be? Steve shivered, throwing off the blankets and getting out of bed. There was nothing for it, he would have to tire himself out. He put his boots back on, mentally apologizing for their less than optimal state. He’d have to get some new ones, he felt like a little kid tracking mud across a fine Persian rug at this rate.

The halls were empty, dark, and silent when he walked through them, but lit up as he began walking. Motion sensing lights, well, wasn’t that something. He remembered where Iron Man had said the gym was, and although the house was massive, it was not as confusing as Steve would have thought. It seemed to be designed with ease of movement and efficiency in mind. 

He paused to look at a painting on the wall. It was framed in gilt, Steve was pretty sure it was an original piece from one of the New Wave artists of his childhood. Steve looked at it for a solid ten minutes before finally making it down to the gym. The door Iron Man indicated during the impromptu tour led to a solidly built elevator, it had a few buttons labeled on it, and Steve pressed the one that said ‘training floor 1’ cautiously. It lit up, and then Steve felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he was speedily and smoothly conveyed downwards. Well, he thought, stepping out into bright lights and the hum of electronic gizmos, It was certainly not Lorenzo De Rossi’s all purpose one room gym. It was huge, with strange machines covered in weights, walls to practice climbing, all manner of mysterious contraptions Steve couldn't work out the use of, and far in the back, something that looked like a street in the city. This was not a gym, this was a whole level of the mansion specifically created for a superhero team.

Steve took some time to look at the equipment on offer, all had little diagrams to explain their use. Steve smiled, well, that was nice of the manufacturer. Still he wasn’t quite ready to test any of those shiny and new looking weight machines, but there was a whole row of punching bags visible from where he was standing. That oughta do it, punching bags he knew. A tray full of supplies sat just off the side. There were soft mats and benches set against the wall just behind the area with the heavy bags, and sleek silver and glass boxes holding bottles with names like Gatorade and Monster, whatever the heck that was. Steve decided on solving that mystery later, grabbing some tape off the supply tray and winding it around his hands. He might have been surrounded by completely incomprehensible things, but he could still throw a punch.

The heavy bag was comforting under his hands, familiar. It was easy to lose himself in the repetitive motion of it, to not think of anything else but the positioning of his body, the angle of his strikes. He worked on it until he was breathing hard, until a tangle of tension released from between his shoulder blades. 

Only the soft whooshing of the doors to the training area opening finally gave him pause. He turned, wiping sweat from his brow in the same motion. There was a man standing near the entrance of the gym. Steve blinked, he was coming closer.

He was tall, nearly Steve's height, or maybe a little shorter, but not really by much. Compact, slender, but strong, with warm sunkissed olive skin, but his face, what a face it was, like someone out of a movie matinee. His hair was blue black, shiny with just a little bit of curl, he had big piercing eyes of the prettiest cerulean blue Steve had ever seen, fringed with thick, dark lashes, and an incredibly precisely trimmed beard that just served to make his features look finer. Oh wow, Steve thought. Steve had no idea why the most aggressively beautiful man he’d seen in all his years was walking closer, as if he were there for Steve, but he was-walking closer that was. If he’d have had a hat on, he would have taken it off in respect, maybe laid his coat out in front of his feet. Steve hastily grabbed a towel off the supply tray and wiped his face off.

“Hi there, having trouble sleeping?” He said, coming to a stop a few feet from Steve. He was in the remnants of a slim cut suit with fine silver pinstriping, hands in his pockets, his expensive looking oxford shirt unbuttoned to the hollow of his throat. Steve gulped on a swallow.

“Uh,” Steve began intelligently. He wasn’t usually this tongue tied, he’d chatted up plenty of dames and fellas, not exactly _well_ but usually he managed to say something at least. The man’s face fell, and Steve finally found it within himself to speak, he was probably coming off as rude, hell. “Having a little trouble, yeah, this is a real nice training room, do the Avengers train in here as a team?” There, that seemed to put the smile back on his guest’s face. Steve felt a little breathless, and irritatingly stupid in the head. 

“That we do, sometimes by ourselves, like you are right now, champ, but a lot of times as a team.” He rocked back on his heels, stuck his hands a little deeper into his pockets. “I can show you all the features later but, I came down to ask if um. You were hungry? I realized we didn’t feed you, and then there was the whole thing with that Namor guy. Sorry, I’m probably interrupting, you probably wanted to be alone...” He trailed off with a wince, probably because Steve was staring at him.   
  
“I uh, yeah I could eat,” Steve’s stomach gave a loud embarrassing growl at the thought, he looked down at himself reproachfully. “Kind of always hungry, if I’m being honest with you.” He began unwrapping his hands, he couldn’t feel them. “Sorry if this is me being a little slow on the uptake, but, have we met?” He hoped it hadn’t come out rudely, or that somehow they had met and Steve had forgotten him. No, that was impossible. 

“Oh! Oh gosh, wow, I am an idiot. Tony Stark, we’ve met, I was just, you know,” He waved a hand around indicating his entire body. Steve tried not to stare, or turn red.

“You’re Iron Man?” Steve asked. This fantastically handsome fella was also a hero. Steve couldn’t believe his luck. Something in his tone must have been wrong though, because Tony’s lips turned down into a frown. Shit. He’d really done it, he raised his hands, palms up. “No I don’t mean to give you a hard time, I just kind of thought you’d be older, and not in such a snappy suit, other than the armor, which is really something, fella.” Steve almost tripped over the words, but he managed to get them out all the same. Tony smiled brilliantly, his eyes went wide, his cheeks stained a dark cherry red. Oh hell, Steve thought, he had just woken up in this century and he already had an impossible crush.

“Well, I’m glad you’re a fan of my old tin can,” He said, sounding just a little faint. He shook himself, drawing his hands out of his pockets and stepping closer. He wasn’t wearing gloves, but he had a few rings on, pretty, manicured hands, but they were covered in thin well-healed scars. “Hi, I’m Tony Stark, and Iron Man, welcome to the Avengers, Captain Rogers.” He held out his arm, and Steve stepped forward, gripping his forearm. Tony’s skin felt so warm beneath the fabric of his shirt, the way Steve had imagined it might feel beneath the armor. This close he could smell the clean minty scent of his breath, and a soft spicy, woodsy scent, the same scent that had been on the heated blanket Tony had so graciously offered him. Usually, with his enhanced senses, Steve could get a good read on people from a distance, but Tony’s scent was subtler, closer to the skin. Still, alpha, he had to be, to have strapped himself into such a fantastic suit of armor and stood at the frontlines with the others. A few of them were betas, but the way Iron Man fought, the way he protected the team, Steve felt a kindred spirit in him.

“Call me Steve off the field, I’m only Cap out there.” They were so close, Their eyes met and held, and Steve felt his heart rate jump up just with that look. 

“Right,” Tony said, and licked his lips, Steve felt himself go hot, the still lingering rush was not helping matters at all, “well then Steve, come on down to the kitchen, I was talking to Jarvis, and we thought maybe you might like some soup, but if that’s a no, then I’ve got a basket full of delivery menus you can look through.” He turned as Steve released his forearm. Steve was immediately sad to lose the warmth of him, but he stayed by Steve’s side while leaving the gym and getting into the elevator.  
  
“Oh no, soup is swell, sounds perfect, I’m feeling a little cold, truth be told.” he admitted quietly, even though it left him feeling off balance and ashamed. Tony sucked in a breath through his teeth. His hands fluttered a bit, and then he pressed himself to Steve’s side as they exited the elevator, their shoulders rubbing together. 

The kitchen was just as huge and futuristic as everything in the mansion other his own room seemed to be. Tony sat nearby on the kitchen counter while Steve spooned soup into his mouth. It was hot, fresh, the pot of it still steaming on the stove. There were chunks of chicken in it, a wide variety of vegetables that couldn’t possibly all be in season, fresh pasta, and a host of spices that made it taste like it belonged in a restaurant. While he watched, Tony unwrapped a sleeve of crackers, and leaned over the counter to scoot them by Steve’s hand.

“I always find soup wholly unsatisfying unless I have at least a few crackers with it. Jarvis always makes faces, but he likes marmite, so he can’t be trusted.” He sat back, swung his legs, saying nothing while watching Steve making his way through the delicious broth with all the determination of a soldier on a mission. 

“Did Mister Jarvis make this? Tastes like it should be served up at some ritzy joint.” It really was good, and the scent of it, the taste of it was starting to make him feel a little slow and sleepy. 

Tony laughed delightedly, he leaned over to pilfer a cracker, chewing on it while smiling over at Steve. “I’ll tell him you said so. It was a joint project though, I always like soup and tea when I’m having a bad day.” He snapped his mouth shut, collecting cracker crumbs off his pants delicately. "You've had a much worse day than any of mine though, I just thought, that it might help." He shrugged. His cheeks were a little pink. Steve had the sudden crazy desire to press his lips to those rosy spots of color.

“Thank you.” He said quietly. “It’s just a lot to take in, you know. All of this,” he gestured expansively around, “I went to sleep and I’m on another planet it seems like.” He was proud of himself for how steady it came out. His insides felt shaky, unsettled, even with the soup warm and filling him up.

“No one expects you to just bounce back, Steve, no one expects you not to grieve.” Tony reached out hesitantly, rested his hand on Steve’s shoulder, the way he had in the armor, but his unarmored hand was even warmer through the thick sweatshirt material. “You’ve lost so much, but I’d like to, to try to make this alien planet feel like home again. Or we, me, us, the team, we can try.” He flushed, looked down, went to take his hand away. Steve reached up, curled his palm around Tony’s elbow and held him there. Beneath his thumb, through Tony’s shirt, Steve felt his pulse jump into a tripping beat.

“Thank you.” he said again, and he meant it.

After he finished eating, he bid Tony goodnight, and trekked back to his room. Tony had looked like he might have wanted to say something, he told Steve he would be out of the country for a week or two, but that he would be back soon as he could. He’d left a card with his number, and a tiny little glass square he called a phone, along with an instruction manual. Unable to sleep after tossing and turning in his bed, he sat up and pored through the manual. This little device could call people, he could watch movies on it? Steve stared a little harder at the words in the booklet.

By morning he memorized the entire booklet, and felt confident enough to scroll through his contact list. All of the Avengers were listed within it, their names and their call signs in one. Steve paced around the room with the phone, and snapped a picture of the strange little box set into the wall, it was covered in glowing lights, and had a drop down panel on it. Steve was afraid to touch the contraption for fear of breaking it. The picture was a little fuzzy, but it was in color. Steve eyed it for a few moments before sending it off to tony with a short text of _‘What is this?’_ He had a few moments to feel regretful about sending the question-he was sure Tony had better things to do than answer Steve about every minute detail in his room-when the phone rang. The words _‘Incoming video call’_ scrolled across the top of the screen. He swiped up to answer the call, the way it had said in the manual, and there was Tony. If Steve had thought he looked sharp the night prior, he somehow looked even better now. He was in a full three piece suit, sat behind a dark wooden desk, surrounded by glass, his hair and his beard were immaculately styled, and he was clutching a coffee cup with ring covered fingers. 

“Hi Steve.” He said, smiled wide, and then looked up, past wherever he must have set his phone to make the call. “Bambi, I don’t care if Wilkins got the memo or not, the plant looks absolutely dismal, how are my people supposed to work in those conditions?” He looked back down, the smile was back on his face, he took a sip of his coffee. “Sorry, there’s rash of stupid going around and I need to remind some people that I don’t just barely scrape by safety regs, anyway, I didn’t call you to bore you with all that, I called you to tell you all about the wonders of indoor heating.”

“Gosh Tony, we didn’t have indoor heating in the forties, we just put hot rocks in our beds.” He said earnestly. Tony pursed his lips, but he was clearly trying not to laugh. His eyes sparkled. 

“Oh, you’re hilarious, but Steve! Steve, you sent me a picture of it, and here I am, giving you a one on one consult.” Tony sat back in his chair, picked up his phone to bring it closer. “No don’t look guilty about it, I don’t have a meeting for another half an hour.” He was still smiling, it was a really good look on him, Steve smiled back, and listened as Tony detailed what the mysterious panel in his room was for. It was a control hub for all the heating and cooling elements in his room. From the temperature of his floors, to the fans and air conditioning when heat waves rolled through. It was more advanced than even the most advanced things Steve had seen while reading through top secret briefings during the war, and it was in his room. Tony was communicating with him from across the country, his face just as clear as if they were seated across from each other. It was wild, difficult to process, even if he had read the manual.

That was just the tip of the iceberg of course. Every day brought new discoveries, new mysteries. Jan helped him figure out the television, and taught him how to work Tony’s fancy dishwasher, she was sweet, tiny, and smelled strongly of alpha. Her partner, Hank Pym was a beta, and didn’t seem too enthusiastic about anything other than insects and science. 

Clint Barton was also a beta, as he figured out while sparring with him in the training room. They had gotten up close and personal while Steve wrestled him to the ground, and the scent of clean water and rosemary hit his nose. He’d gotten a talking to about being too big for his britches that left him grinning for the rest of the day. Clint was a mouthy fella, he felt like Bucky would have probably gotten along with him. 

Of course Bucky’s favorite would have been Natasha, all things considered, Bucky’d always had a soft spot for redheads and danger in small packages. The first time they sparred, he hadn’t quite known where her skills were, but she’d cleaned his clock impressively. Steve was only too happy to scrape himself off the floor afterwards and shoot her a salute. She had looked surprised but pleased, and given him a sly little wink that made his ears crimson. Her scent was hard to place, dark and sweet, and slightly bitter, he thought she might be an omega, but he couldn’t be too sure, she seemed to favor perfumes, and he had never known an omega to be ex-Russian intelligence. He was sure there was a story there, but Natasha seemed guarded, so he didn’t ask.

Then there was Thor. Tall, built like a mountain, with a voice that could shake the heavens, and a smile that could light up a room. It had been no shock to find out the man was a prince, maybe a bit of one to learn he was an alien, but Steve just took it in stride, he’d worked with aliens before. He was neither an alpha, a beta, nor an omega, but he found it all quite fascinating. He asked Steve some rather pointed questions while sipping a sweet smelling coffee in a tall paper cup, and then royally proclaimed he wished to spar with the team. All present had gone down to the training room and engaged in a wild sparring session that left most of them panting on the floor. It felt good, it felt like living.

At night he was still alone though. He struggled to sleep. The bed was comfortable, the temperature perfect, but sleep, if it did come was short and filled with nightmares. He woke more often than not with his heart pounding and a scream caught in his throat. Back during the war, his inability to truly come down from a rush wasn’t as much of a problem. There was always another mission, always something to move towards. He never had more than a day or two of waiting around. 

On a call with Tony, he’d learned the government didn’t own him anymore. He was his own man, free to do as he pleased, whether that was joining the Avengers or striking out on his own. It had been freeing at the time, but now there was a part of him that longed for a mission to keep his feet on the ground. He wouldn’t rejoin however, there were soldiers all over the world, battles Steve didn’t understand why they were fighting. Money, oil, empire, that was hardly a Nazi threat, and while there were places soldiers were greatly needed, he would have no control of where he would be sent. He wouldn’t become a puppet or a prop for some overblown politician with more greed than sense. 

He’d been catching up on history, and boy did he not like what he read. Installing governments, causing unrest and the collapse of infrastructure, every oil reserve was its own thirty pieces of silver. Steve had thrown the book at the wall the first time he’d read about Japan. He hadn’t slept right for the rest of the week. What had they _done_? The pictures, God, the pictures had left him weak and shaking for hours. In a way he was glad he slept through that atrocity, had he been awake, there’s no telling what he would have done. Now I am become death, indeed, he thought, as he picked the book up and finished it, even though it made tears stream down his face. They had won the war alright, but at what a cost, another generation of omegas had been lost as everyone had feared, and countless others too. Steve wasn’t willing to pay that, not again. He stayed away from re-enlisting, even if it meant he’d never sleep properly again.

It was a day after he received his Avengers communicator that it first went off. Tony was still not back from his trip out of state, but he had still found time to build the slim device and envoy it to him. It came with one of his little sticky notes, and another Iron Man stick figure. Steve had stuck it on the cork board behind his desk with the first. 

It was good to pull his uniform back on, to strap the shield to his back. He had not slept properly in days, but that hardly mattered, he’d run potentially deadly missions before with far less sleep under his belt, he’d manage. 

“ETA, two minutes to sight, what have we got?” Widow asked when he boarded the shiny hovering plane waiting for him on the landing pad.

“It’s the masters of evil again, you know the drill.” Wasp said, she looked deeply annoyed.

“Aw, them again, what is up with that? I thought they were all in prison, or at least radioactive asshole was.” Hawkeye had a killer five o’clock shadow going on, or maybe it was at least a day of growth. He was also eating a slice of pizza. It was pretty early, Steve supposed.  
  
“Someone broke them out, and they’re spreading some kind of adhesive substance all over, the brooklyn bridge is at a standstill.” Giant Man was reading a file, he could see all sorts of chemical diagrams in it he couldn’t make heads or tails of. However, the mention of adhesive, that was interesting, and not in a good way.

“Adhesive, what kind of adhesive?” His question was answered as they landed by the Brooklyn Bridge. Cars were at a standstill, he could hear people breaking their windows to climb out of their cars. He had seen this before, a lifetime ago now it seemed. Adhesive X, but it couldn’t be? Zemo had escaped, but he had hoped someone had taken old sockface out in his absence. Down the street some kind of black suited knight landed, he was riding a winged horse. Steve blinked in confusion. Maybe Baron Zemo had nothing to do with this after all. He sure hoped not. 

“Ugh, what the HELL is that?” Hawkeye groaned, as they made their way out of the jet.

“Be nice, Hawkeye, it’s just Black Knight, he can’t help looking like that.” Wasp said, hovering beside Steve’s ear. 

Steve was about to reply when a glowing green figure appeared, barreling towards them at high speed, only to be intercepted by Thor. After that it was a whirlwind of a fight. Steve dodged blows between getting civilians safely off the bridge. The rush was on him in force, the world sharpening into bright colors, time seeming to slow. Each of the villains the team fought seemed to have some kind of personal vendetta, with the exception of the one they called Melter, who seemed to be searching for-there was a boom, and then a high whining sound interrupted his thoughts, a concussive blast blew Melter straight back into Radioactive Man.

“Did I miss something, is this some kind of villainous reunion tour, you all just couldn’t resist getting together for one last hurrah, like Aerosmith.” Iron man was hovering above the street, his palms turned towards the chaos.

“Aerosmith, what about The Who?” Clint called, he was perched on a support girder somehow, lining an arrow up.

“Haven’t been the same since we lost Moon and Entwistle, requiescat in pace.” 

“Van Halen then.” Clint fired back, firing an arrow at Radioactive Man in the same breath.  
  
“I weep for your taste in music, birdbrain.” Iron Man said, streaking up into the sky to aim a pinpoint blast at Black knight. He was clearly trying to avoid the horse, winged and looking a little like it belonged at the front of an apocalypse though it was. Steve couldn’t really follow the conversation, but he got the gist.

“Watch it tin-man, blast lining up on your six.” Wasp said over the comms, and Iron Man did a sort of pirouette in the sky to avoid another of Melter’s blasts, before Widow climbed onto the guy’s back and started choking him with ruthless precision.

“Don’t kill him Widow, disabling only please.” Iron man called, to Widow’s grunt of the affirmative.

“Everyone, take on a villain you have not clashed with before, they know your weaknesses, so switch it up.” Steve said into the comms, after Radioactive Man got a little too close for comfort with Thor.

"Roger that.” Giant man said, shrinking down to avoid a volley of shots from Black Knight.

Something purple caught Steve’s eye, just out of the range of the adhesive coating the bridge was a man Steve had hoped dead. Baron Zemo in the flesh, there was no mistaking his ugly lack of mug. What a cruel twist of fate that everyone he’d ever loved was gone, but here was a piece of Nazi loving human refuse, and he’d survived. Steve felt that old anger grip him, almost as vivid and intense as it was when his team had been threatened during rut. He forgot his own suggestion to pick a villain he had yet to clash with, he forgot his own sadness for a moment, shelved it away and took off towards Zemo, using the trapped cars in the road as springboards to get him closer to his target.

“You!” Zemo shrieked, jumping back away from Steve, his eyes were wide, arrogant still but afraid, “I thought you were dead, I thought I had rid myself of you forever!”

Steve’s ears were ringing, his heartbeat loud in his own ears. Zemo was still speaking, but it didn’t matter, there was nothing he could have said that Steve wanted to hear. Zemo had clearly been practicing, but he was not as adept as he thought he was. An arrogant murderer of innocents with a god complex, that was all Zemo had ever been. He still remembered the test subjects, helpless victims of tyranny. Zemo never had been able to stand up to someone that could fight back. He was going on about how he could never lose, how Steve was soft and could never beat him. What a load of garbage, Steve didn’t pull his punches. He felt each impact with a grim satisfaction, alternating between using the shield and his fists. He spoke to Zemo about liberty, and the measure of a man, even if he knew it fell on deaf ears, but it didn’t matter, in the end he stood over him panting, while Zemo struggled to stand like the worm he was.

“The world must never again make the fatal error of mistaking compassion for weakness, and while I live it won’t.” it didn’t feel like a victory, not really, but it felt like something. As the Avengers made it to the warehouse he had beat Zemo back to speaking of their own victories, it felt like belonging, like a team he could truly be part of, a world he could be part of, even if it still hurt.

After the authorities arrived, and carted away the Masters of Evil, the team stood in the street, there was still Adhesive X everywhere. Some of it was even on Iron Man’s back. He didn’t seem to care, and seemed far more concerned about the state of the bridge.

Giant Man was holding a slim panel of glass, holding it up to the scene around them, it looked like he had the police chief on the line. “We’ve tried everything, from acetone to industrial grade solvents, I’m sure we can figure something out, but the Brooklyn Bridge can’t be out of commission for weeks or months.” He said, and Jan buzzed up next to him, growing back to her normal size.

“Paste Pot Pete, he’s the only one we think can help, we wouldn’t ask otherwise.” Jan made her already expressive eyes wider, imploring the guy to see it her way. It clearly seemed to work, he sighed, steepling his fingers in front of himself, ready to capitulate. Steve had not been around for the whole Paste Pot Pete debacle, but Wasp and the others seemed confident the former villain would be able to provide something with the ability to dissolve Adhesive X.

“Whaddya want me to tell him to get him to help?” The chief asked, already nodding to people off-screen.

Iron Man walked over, peering into the tablet with his inscrutable glowing gaze. “I think we can manage a shorter sentence, don’t you?” In response the chief sighed again, but it wasn’t long before Pete provided deliverance from their sticky situation. Pun very much intended. Between Iron Man and Thor flying around to spread the solvent across the entirety of the affected parts of the bridge, the street was soon cleared, to the cheers of the gathered crowds and the waiting news crews.

After everything was cleared, Iron Man informed them he had to get back to the manufacturing facility he had been at for the last two weeks, explaining he was overseeing the installation of new safety devices. He was apologetic about it, but Steve just clapped him on the shoulder and asked him to come back soon. 

Steve went for a walk after that. They would debrief later, when Tony returned from his business duties. New Yorkers were just as used to seeing celebrities as they had ever been. Some pointed and stared, but most of them gave him his space. He found himself standing in front of a fine jewelry store almost as if on autopilot. It advertised rings for bonded dyads, triads, jeweled gloves, and all manner of courting gifts. All beautiful gifts he never would have been able to afford before being frozen.

He had money now though, bank accounts left untouched for decades. Tony had triumphantly informed him he had a big lump sum of backpay to his name as well as being paid by the Avengers. He had some idea of what he wanted to do. Of course the trouble was that Tony was an alpha, it wasn’t really common practice to give an alpha lavish courting gifts, but Tony wore jewelry, and in some of the glossy magazine photos he had seen of him, Tony had been wearing gloves, so clearly he eschewed traditions both spoken and unspoken. 

There were pictures of him too, with little accompanying press blurbs. Pictures of him with other alphas, though he seemed to favor betas, but it meant maybe, just maybe he had a chance. Or at least, he wasn’t entirely averse to stepping out with another alpha. That didn’t change the fact that Tony Stark was a man of the future. Beautiful, charming, with a megawatt smile that could give a fella chest palpitations. The likelihood he would even want to make time with an old soldier, an old fossil like Steve seemed fanciful at best. He could feel the drop approaching, but he ignored it, choosing instead to take a look at what the shop had on offer. There were stones of every color, pictures of happy couples and triads exclaiming over their gifts, promises of love and bonding wherever he turned. 

“Can I help you?” A saleswoman asked from behind a glassed in counter. Steve flushed a little, he’d probably looked like a complete bozo, wandering around the store in a daze. “Are you looking for a courting gift, maybe something nice for your bonded?” She asked brightly. Her smile looked welcoming, like maybe she might not laugh at him. She was probably used to dealing with alphas and betas coming in with looks of stunned fear on their faces.

“That obvious I’m lost, huh?” He said, peering down into the glass case she was leaning against.

“You have a bit of that look, yes, but I’m sure we can find something nice for your intended.” She seemed real sure about that. Steve wished he had her certainty. 

“It’s a little complicated, he’s well. He’s a real well to do fella, rich, gorgeous, probably an alpha.” Steve shrugged helplessly, he didn’t even know where to start. He never had the money before joining the army, and after that it had been too fraught, too dangerous to really think about love and bonding. 

“Probably?” She sounded a little surprised, but not as much as he would have expected. Maybe giving alphas courting gifts wasn’t that strange anymore. 

“I can’t really tell, and I don’t want to ask, or put my nose right on him, it wouldn’t be proper.” He fell into a sort of pseudo parade rest as he spoke. The saleswoman-Julia her nametag said-her eyebrows rose, and she smiled as if she’d just been given the best present in the world.

“Ah,” She said, “Probably suppressants, my George always says they make everyone smell like their perfume.” She smiled encouragingly “That’s just,” She took a little ring of keys off her belt loop and began unlocking a few jewelry cases, “sweet, that’s very sweet of you, not prying, I’m sure your ambiguous friend will appreciate the gift, no matter what.”

“I sure hope so, only I don’t really know how to start, never done this before. I’ve read about it but,” He shrugged helplessly. Julia nodded, he could hear chains clinking, the sound of things rolling around in cases.

“Alright, I have quite a bit of experience helping out with that type of thing.” She stood, her arms were stacked high with velvet trays full of a king’s ransom worth of jewels. “If you’re not sure, it’s probably best to avoid bracelets, collars, rings can even be tricky, depending on how married to looking like an alpha your fair friend is.” She separated a few of the trays away, the ones containing slender diamond encrusted chokers, and a few more substantial looking ones. Steve flushed, a necklace was a _real_ statement of a gift, it practically laid out that you wanted to bond, the only thing more like a proposal was a handfasting silk. 

“He wears rings, pretty ones, but it looks like he already has a whole collection of those.” Tony’s hands were always adorned, manicured and well kept even with the scarring. Steve remembered seeing all his beta classmates come back from the summer with their hands all manicured and their fingernails painted in blushes and reds. The fashion now seemed to be either bare nails, or wild colors the likes of which Steve had never seen, not used in a paint at any rate.

“Does he wear gloves?” She asked, bending to retrieve another tray, this one full of all sorts of steady gloves, thin lace studded with stones. “That might be too much of a statement, but they are very pretty.”

“I’ve seen him in ah, pictures with gloves but, I haven’t even given him a letter of intent yet, seems a little premature.” He said, but still reached down to touch one of the gloves, it was a velvet burnout lace, fine and probably handcrafted. Wedded gloves were made of silk, often with the fingers exposed or the fingertips capped with precious metal. Steve imagined Tony wearing something like that and felt himself flush red.

“A letter of intent, how old fashioned,” She smiled, “and sweet, but alright then, strikeout the glove idea. Let’s see, hmm, maybe.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, walking down to another set of cases, bending to open those up and rifle through them. “Aha! Here we are.” She returned to stand triumphantly before Steve, another stack of boxes in her arms, which she set down and began dividing up. Steve hoped he wasn’t taking up too much of her time with all his indecision, but she didn’t look annoyed at least, she kind of looked delighted in fact.

“What are those?” He asked, pointing to the glittering things on the top of the stack. White gold chains connected to two circles of a mesh like metal, studded with glimmering opals. Julia went a little pink and set that box aside.

“That is for use beneath clothing, a chain around the waist, the cuffs go around the legs, very decorative, but probably not something to give as a first time courting gift. If you bond with an omega you might gift it before a heat.” She said gently, but with no small hint of amusement. 

Oh. Oh wow. Steve had seen something like that before, long ago in an eight-pager. Bonding was a sacred thing, the deepest connection lovers could have with each other. So of course, as with anything sacred, there had been a whole lot of obscene art dedicated to it. He’d seen pin-ups too, art of flirty omegas and sometimes betas hiking up their skirts or in tiny briefs with sparkling gems high up on their thighs and precious metal around their waists. He had never seen this particular piece of jewelry in person though, metal was scarce during parts of the war, and even before then, such fine things were far too expensive for Steve to ever had laid eyes on them. Steve imagined Tony like that, wearing such a thing for him, and had to force himself to swallow. It was terribly presumptuous of course, that even if someway, somehow Steve got to courting Tony, that even then he would wear a gift like that. Especially if he was an alpha, as Steve thought he might be, but-Steve reached out and touched over the shining metal. It was beautiful, really, he wondered if maybe he himself could pull it off, or if maybe that would be too strange.

“It’s beautiful.” He said quietly. “Are there other colors? I'd like to buy one.” He smiled, a little shyly, feeling the heat on his face. “It’s not the gift I’ll make my intentions known with, but maybe one day.” He shrugged, feeling foolish and hopeful at once. Julia just gave him a brilliant smile and immediately moved into showing him more options than he could shake a stick at. He settled on a delicate gold set, with deep blood colored garnet. He didn’t look at the price, he didn’t want to know. Everything was too expensive anyway, he didn’t have a frame of reference yet, and the cost wouldn’t stop him anyway.

“Now, let’s see, what do you think of this, for your first courting gift then?” Julia said, shifting boxes around until she found one with rows of small square compartments. Tucked within each square were all sorts of fancy cufflinks. Some were polished precious metals, others were enameled or inset with gemstones. “This is a nice, neutral sort of gift, it says ‘I’m interested’ without being presumptuous.” 

Steve picked a few different sets up, turning them this way and that in his hand. “I think it’s perfect, ah. Do you have a set in garnet and gold?” His ears were never going to stop being red at this rate, but Julia seemed to take it all in stride, producing another tray with a set of perfectly matched links. Even the cut of the stones was the same, a nice sized emerald cut garnet surrounded by tiny dangling briolette cut ones. They were beautiful, finer than anything else he had ever considered purchasing, well other than the waist chain, but this seemed more real, more like something he could work up the nerve to give. “I’ll take ‘em, can I get a red box for them?” He asked, passing them back over to Julia, who began polishing them with a cloth immediately.

“Of course, we definitely have red velvet boxes. Would you like to write a note with your gift, or have wrapped? We can take care of that for you here, no extra charge.” She was moving around, polishing both of his purchases. She very carefully set the cufflinks into a ruby red jewel box, and then the larger, more delicate chain into another red container, also velvet, but almost as slim as an envelope. The jeweler’s name was emblazoned across the tops in swirling gold lettering. Steve felt a little dizzy. 

“No, It’s alright, thank you though, for all your help ma’am, I woulda been lost without it.” He said, and he meant it. Julia seemed almost taken aback, but took his bank card when he handed it over. Wasn’t that something, bank cards. You could swipe one of those and know immediately if you were good for it, if you had the jack. In Steve’s time credit and bank accounts had been far more complicated. He supposed it cut down on theft, Jan said almost no one carried cash on them anymore. 

She leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. “You’re welcome, and for what it’s worth, I think your intended is one lucky guy.” This close he could tell she was an alpha. That gave him more confidence in the gifts, if she thought they were good ones, he supposed she’d know, and she hadn’t judged him for wanting to court a possible alpha.  
  
“Aw,” He said, he wasn’t sure about that at all, but he was glad someone thought so. “I’m not exactly an ace choice, but he seems to like me alright anyway.” 

“He better.” She said with a smile. “Good luck, take care of yourself, and thank you for that save with the Brooklyn bridge.” She passed him her business card with a wink. Steve gave her a little salute after taking the bag with his purchases.

“Just doing my job.” It felt good to say that, to have a purpose, even in this strange new century. 

* * *

Back at the mansion his confidence wavered. He sat on his overly luxurious bed, holding the little box with the cufflinks in it. What had he been thinking? Here he was, in a massive mansion belonging to a man he intended to court with _cufflinks_. Tony probably had a whole closet full of jewelry nicer than what he had bought. There was no indication he was even interested. Steve didn’t think he was stepping out with anyone, he seemed to be single, but that didn’t mean he was. Maybe he was just private. Still, Steve wanted. He wanted a lot. Even as his body grew cold and he began to shake with the drop, he still felt that desire. 

Steve put the cufflinks away in his nightstand, nestled atop the box holding the chains. His teeth chattered with imagined cold. Steve kicked his boots off, stripped off his uniform and put on the sweats Tony gave him that first night in the mansion. The shivers persisted even as he climbed into bed beneath the mountain of covers.

Tucked beneath the heated blanket that still smelled faintly of Tony, he thought about what it would look like if Tony accepted his gifts, both of them, and actually wore them. Tony in one of his fancy oxford shirts, with all the buttons undone, and the waist chain wrapped around his hips, gems hugging his gorgeous thighs. The rush of heat hit him suddenly, rolling over the drop with such force he could have sworn he _felt_ his eyes dilate. He never managed to court anyone, never had someone he could call his, and he could belong to in turn. Sure he’d slept with people in the past, and it was fun, it had been good, but that wasn’t what he wanted with Tony. He wanted to see Tony in his gifts. He could see it so vividly in his mind's eye. Tony, sitting the way the betas and omegas sometimes sat in the pin-up art, kneeling on the bed all covered in Steve’s gifts, that megawatt smile of his lighting up his face. God.

Tony was probably an alpha, but it wasn’t unheard of, was it? The saleswoman hadn’t seemed all that surprised. He imagined it, Tony laying back, letting Steve cover him with his body. He would be so warm, he always looked so warm, welcoming. 

Steve groaned, shoved a hand beneath the waistband of his pants. It was probably wrong to think of Tony that way, but God it was the first time he’d felt pleasure since coming out of the ice. He wouldn’t bother Tony with it, he _wouldn’t,_ this was selfish and wrong, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop thinking of Tony kissing him, the way it would feel, the rub of his beard over his shoulders if Tony turned him over, if he were to hold Steve down on the bed and really fuck him. Steve swore creatively, his cock was so hard in his hand, leaking already. 

Steve had been with other alphas before, he knew his cock was too big for it to be really all that comfortable for another alpha. Back in the war there were several he’d spent the night with, and more often than not when he’d dropped his trousers, he was met with trepidation from his alpha partners, and most of the betas as well. So he’d bottomed, and it had been good, it had been great, truth be told. He liked it, the feeling of something inside him, hand on his hips, or his shoulders, anything, the way his partners talked to him, praised him. It wasn’t always the easiest thing, but he could take it, he would take it for Tony, God he’d give it up the best Tony had ever had. 

Steve moaned, tossed his head back into the pillows with just the thought of it, the thought of Tony holding him down, giving him the fucking of his life. Tony was strong, smaller than Steve, but his body was-God his body, his legs, those thighs, that gorgeous rear, and then there was the armor, it made him taller than Steve, stronger. He was barely stroking himself and he already felt close, his thoughts dissolving into a tangle of need and want and half formed images.

He thought of fucking Tony too, he couldn’t help it, even if it wasn’t possible. He stroked himself faster, thrust into his own hand, he didn’t even need lube, he was leaking all over himself, making a mess of his hands and the sweats. Tony would be so tight, the way the few alphas who’d gotten ambitious had been. He imagined pushing Tony’s legs up, hooking his elbows under Tony’s knees, holding him open, fucking him slow and steady. He would be careful, keep a hand on himself to keep from getting too deep. He had the self control, if somehow his knot formed he’d keep that hand steady, wouldn’t even let Tony feel the suggestion of it. Tony would be so good, so sweet and warm, he’d tell Steve it felt good, that his overlarge cock felt good, and God if he wasn’t an alpha, if he _could-_ Steve dragged his mind away from that possibility, but just the passing thought of that, made him cry out loud enough he worried about being heard down the hall-and came all over himself.

Steve laid there panting. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead. His body tingled all over. He was still hard. Steve swallowed, shut his eyes, and started moving his hand again. In for a penny, in for a pound, he wasn’t sleeping that night. God he wasn’t going to be able to look Tony in the eyes when they next met up.

He got no sleep that night, and when the drop finally hit him in force, it left him sweating and panting for hours. He took a shower right before dawn, and went for a jog around the city. He jogged as far and as long as he could handle. 

New Yorkers hadn’t changed, he realized as he ran through the streets. There were little bodegas with apartment buildings above them, people playing cards and smoking on building stoops, and when Steve crossed the street at least three cabbies honked at him, the guy walking next to him was engaged in a shouting match with one of the cabbies. “Ey, ey, I’m walking here, buddy!” He yelled, there were rude gestures all around. Steve smiled, at least that was familiar.

Later he rode the subway down to the lower east side, walked the streets he used to know, stood in the alleyway where his apartment building once resided. Looking up between the forms of buildings at the sky, he still felt a little like a ghost. He could still see it, if he closed his eyes. Sure it had been a crummy apartment, and sure the landlord was a real pill, but it was where he’d grown up, where Sarah took her last breaths. Steve hung his head, held back a sob, but he turned away, kept walking. 

There was a pizza joint where the De Rossi’s gym once stood. Their pizza was delicious. He sat in the very back of the place. The chairs were rickety, and the tables looked like they’d seen better days, but there were pictures all over the walls in black and white, some of them of the gym. Steve chewed his food and stared back in time until he’d worked his way through the entire pizza, and the guy behind the counter started looking at him with suspicion. 

He wandered aimlessly until it was after dark. When he made it back to the mansion, Jarvis seemingly materialized from the aether to offer him dinner. Steve wondered if there was some kind of sensor system on the front door. The whole mansion was probably wired, come to think of it. It was well known the Avengers all stayed in the mansion at least on a temporary basis. Steve decided he would check out the control room, wherever it was, after he finished the delicious spread of food Jarvis laid out for him in the dining room.

“Master Tony called to remind me to ask you if there was anything you wished to request for the weekend grocery effort? We can accommodate any request, so long as it can be found on this planet.” Jarvis said mildly, Steve got the feeling that last bit was aimed at Thor. Jarvis passed him a pad of paper and a fancy lapis and gold pen. “Write what you wish to have purchased there, and I will see to it.”  
  
“Mister Jarvis, that’s real generous, but I have my own money now, I can get my own groceries.” Generous was really the operative word, with everything Tony did. He opened his house to the team, built them training rooms, funded the team, and he seemed to have an unshakeable affection for and faith in Steve. It made him feel incredibly off balance, but also grateful, he just didn’t know how to return that gratitude. He hoped he was making it worth it for Tony, for the team.  
  
“Indeed I’m sure you can, but Anthony insists, and I shan’t deny him. He makes the most dreadful faces when unhappy, you see.” Jarvis’ eyes sparkled fondly. He seemed more like a father figure to Tony than a butler, if Steve really thought about it. No one ever spoke of Tony’s old man, he wondered what that was about.

“Alright well, I wouldn’t want Tony to be upset then, but I’ll warn you, I can eat a lot.” Steve said, gamely scribbling a few things he’d like to have onto the pad of paper. He wondered if Jarvis would judge him for wanting several pounds of hot dogs.

“Excellent choices.” Jarvis said, picking up the list after Steve finished writing.

Belly full, and his eyes finally drooping, Steve shuffled his way back to his room. He fell into bed with a yawn. He laid there. His heart was pounding. Steve raked a hand over his face and sat up. His phone was on the nightstand, he picked it up and pulled up the internet. Clint made fun of him for calling it that. He knew it was called a browser, but he liked to pretend he didn’t, just to get Hawkeye going. 

It was easy to order anything these days, hell, if he’d wanted to, he could have bought a car online. Steve navigated to a page he’d seen advertised on commercials while wandering around town. It was a company that sold water bottle pillows. Big plush pillows in the shape of animals with chambers meant to hold hot or cold liquids. It seemed a hell of a lot better than a water bottle wrapped in fabric behind enemy lines. Sure it was expensive, but it wasn’t like he was paying rent these days. Steve ordered two of them, one in the shape of a happy fat cat, and the other in the shape of a big carrot. He thought Sarah might have gotten a kick out of that one. Next day air too, it was some God-awful sum for the shipping upgrade, but Steve ticked it off anyway. It would be worth it, if he could finally get some rest.

* * *

The pillows arrived right on time, delivered to him with a smile by Jarvis. They were in discreet cardboard packaging. Steve felt almost as furtive opening up the boxes as he might have felt cracking open a case of marital aides. He filled the big pudgy cat pillow in his bathroom, waiting until the water was almost too hot to bear, and then climbing under the heated blanket with it. He pressed his face against the soft fluffy fabric of the pillow, held it tightly to his chest. It wasn’t a person, and it didn’t make his body feel all that much less like a live wire, but it still felt nice in his arms. Steve breathed in, breathed out, tried to relax, tried to tell his body that it was alright, he could rest. 

He slept three hours before an Avengers alert thrust him into wakefulness again. He counted it as a win.

The villain was some jacked up wannabe dictator named Kang the Conqueror. Just that name alone made Steve hate him extra. He claimed he was from the future, and jabbered on about being superior and on and on. All things Steve and the others had heard countless times before. Maybe the time traveling business was a little out of left field, but he still didn’t like getting smacked by Thor’s hammer, so Steve could work with it.

It was a tougher battle than expected, even after Iron Man arrived. There were a few close calls, all of them were captured, but quick thinking on Wasp’s part led to their victory. Afterwards, standing on the street with the team, watching Thor tossing wasp into the sky and catching her, he couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey Iron Man,” He said, walking over to rest his hand on the armor, “you feeling alright? You were paralyzed there for a little bit.” he hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Seeing the armor still, the lights dimmed, he had momentarily feared for the worst, but Tony had recovered quickly, and rejoined them all in the fight without a hitch. The armor wasn’t even scratched, looking as glossy and well fitted as ever. Beneath the cowl Steve felt his cheeks pink.

“Oh yeah, right as rain, good as ever.” He sounded a little shaky, Steve slung an arm over his metal shoulders.

“You did great out there, really fine work, Shellhead, but are you alright?” Steve repeated, fighting the urge to ask Tony to take the armor off so he could check him over properly.   
  
“Cap, I’m fine, really, just a minor setback.” The helmet retracted, Steve didn’t know it could do that. Tony was smiling down at him, his eyes looked more dilated than they probably should have been. Steve stood up a little straighter, peered into his face searchingly. Tony stared back at him, he frowned. “Have you been having trouble sleeping?”

“I’m fine Tony, just didn’t sleep well last night.” Or the nights before that, but he wasn’t about to burden Tony with that knowledge, there wasn’t really anything he could do about that as it was. Tony was still frowning though, he raised a gauntleted hand to stroke his thumb over the hollows beneath Steve’s eyes. Steve tried not to shiver. It felt so good, Tony touching him so gently, even if it was the armor, it was so warm.

“Fine doesn’t give a supersoldier dark undereye circles, babe. I’m a pro at not sleeping, I know what it looks like.” Tony wasn’t looking away, this close Steve could see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes. He smelled like metal, and the spicy, woodsy scent Steve had come to associate with him. 

“So you admit you don’t sleep enough, never thought I’d hear that.” Everyone said it, and there were coffee makers strewn all over the mansion. He was pretty sure there was an espresso machine in the foyer off the main entrance. 

“Oh that’s not fair, turning that against me. You dirty cheat.” He said with a groan, but he sounded fond.

“Guys, hate to interrupt you, but, the press approaches.” Jan said, growing to her regular size. She went to hang off of hank, dragging him over to smile winningly at the approaching photographers.

“We’ll talk later, yeah, I’ll be back at the mansion tomorrow.” Tony said, his arm firmly wrapped around Steve. Warm, the armor was so warm. Steve leaned against him a little more, and Tony hummed contentedly. They watched Jan field questions for a few minutes, before Tony shepherded them over to speak with the reporters. He was dazzling and charismatic as ever, and he kept his arm around Steve the entire time. 

Afterwards he flew Steve back to the mansion in a thrilling, spiraling flight that left him breathless and laughing. “We’ll have to practice that, maybe I can put some special grip compartments on the armor for you.” Tony said, letting the helmet recede once more. Steve laughed, feeling lighter than he had all week.

“That was really something, Iron Man, Tony, that’s better than a rollercoaster, wow.” They were walking through the mansion, towards the kitchen. He knew Tony had to leave soon, to go back to his work and his company, but for the moment it was nice to have him near.

“You’re an adrenaline junkie, can’t say I’m surprised, I approve.” Tony leaned against the doorway of the kitchen as the rest of the Avengers arrived and crowded around the food Jarvis doled out. There was a massive side of mutton on the table for Thor. It seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, or maybe he had just been paying more attention to the way the armor looked in the bright lights of the room. The way Tony looked when Jan skipped over and shoved a donut in his laughing mouth.

“Okay, okay, love you all, but I have a meeting in,” Tony lifted his hand, looked at his wrist, “two hours, and I have to jet.” He chewed on another bite of the donut, Hawkeye threw a balled up napkin at him.

“You don’t even have a watch there!” Clint called. Tony rolled his eyes skyward.

“Stop sassing me, I have watches wherever I like.” Tony sauntered a little closer to Steve, he wondered how he did that, fully armored as he was. It was sure nice to look at though. “See you soon.” He said, dropping his voice lower, only for Steve’s ears. Steve felt himself turn a little red, beside him at the table, Natasha piled his plate with food, she didn’t say anything, but she looked a little worried.

After dinner, Steve went to his room. He could feel the drop coming. They had won the fight with Kang, but there were too many close calls, too many variables unaccounted for. He felt there was more he could be doing. The sight of the armor unmoving and their comm links with Tony silent still sat ill with him. He knew Tony was fine, had said he was fine, as were the others, but he just couldn’t shake it, that feeling he wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t protecting the team as well as he should be. 

Missions went bad sometimes, he knew that just as well as anyone, but it was different now somehow. This team, they were fast becoming his family, he couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to any of them. He was already cut off from his own time, trying to find his way in a world that saw him more as an icon than a man. There were statues of him around the country, _statues,_ of him, Steve Rogers, and more than one museum. It was surreal to think on, the way the world saw him; more myth than man. He wondered what all those storytellers would say now if they could see him, alone in his bed clutching a plush water bottle close, with the drop leaving him a shaking mess. Icons couldn’t bleed, they couldn’t be human, he knew that, but it still hurt in a way. 

He wanted to walk out into the living room, he knew Jan and the others were slated to watch a movie that night. He wanted to join them, but he wasn’t in any fit kind of shape to be good company that night. He was far too exhausted, far too raw to make conversation or even pay attention to the movie picture. The plush was warm against his side, he clutched it closer, shut his eyes and tried to do the breathing exercises he learned during the war. His heart was still pounding, but at last he drifted off into a fitful, uneasy sleep.

He slept four hours, which was more than he had slept since coming out of the ice. He was still exhausted, but when he looked in the fogged mirror in the bathroom after his too hot shower, the dark circles beneath his eyes were no longer visible. It was good, it meant maybe Tony wouldn’t worry needlessly about him the next time they saw each other. Which turned out to be sooner rather than later.

Steve was in the kitchen frying up some bacon and eggs while talking to Jan about what on Earth was wrong with bananas nowadays, when Tony walked in. He was in the process of buttoning up a lovely herringbone waistcoat, but he looked about as tired as Steve felt. It was so good to see him back though, and clearly he wasn’t the only one that thought so. Jan skipped over to collect a big hug and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Hiya tin man, how was Los Angeles?” She asked, she looked much more relaxed than she had when he first entered the kitchen. Tony smiled, squeezed her hands in his. 

“Busy, one of the plant supervisors wanted a bonus more than he had any sense, but it’s all squared away now. How have you been, Waspie? High pockets better be taking you out dancing.” He said, laughing as she took his ungloved right hand and spun herself into a twirl. There was lipstick on his cheek. He didn’t seem to have noticed.

“You better believe he still owes me on that.” She rolled her eyes, but she still looked fond. She also grabbed Tony’s face and began dabbing at the lipstick smudge. Tony just stood there docily, his nose wrinkling up when she grabbed a napkin to rub a bit more vigorously. Steve smiled to himself, scraping food from the pan onto a plate. He was pretty sure it was a serving plate, but it served its purpose.

“Tell him he’s on probation until you get to wear your dancing shoes.” Tony said, after the lipstick was removed to Jan’s satisfaction, patting her hand and walking over to rifle through the fridge. Jan sighed and sat back down at the table, she looked a little sleepy and entirely content. Tony emerged from inside of the fridge a moment later with a tall glass filled with layers of granola and yogurt. He set it down on the counter, pulling on his other glove-thin soft black leather-with rings sewn into it, smiling a little obscurely when he noted Steve watching him. “Hi Steve.” He said, sidling over to stand close, close enough for Steve to catch the scent of expensive spicy cologne and whatever it was Tony put in his hair to make it look so perfectly styled. Steve shoved a bite of egg into his own mouth to keep from saying anything ridiculous. “How did you sleep?” Tony asked, seemingly oblivious to the way Steve’s heart rate kicked up by just having him near.

“Probably better than you, Shellhead, did you even sleep, or did you just fly straight back from Los Angeles to go to a meeting?” Steve fought the urge to wince. That was not at all how he wanted that to come out.

Tony’s jaw dropped, he sputtered a little. “I slept! I put the armor on auto-pilot and had a nice nap, I’ll have you know.” 

“Sorry, sorry, that was rude, let me make it up to you.” He said, putting down his fork and walking over to the espresso machine. He would have gotten the stovetop coffee maker out, but Tony probably had to leave soon, and there wasn’t enough time to make a traditional cuppa. Nonna would have scolded him, he could see her throwing her hands up in his mind’s eye. He remembered how Tony liked his coffee, cappuccino was his favorite, he liked it sweet too, and piping hot. “Here you go, hot off the presses.” He said, holding the cup out too Tony when he was done frothing the milk and adding sugar. 

“Oh.” Tony stared down at the cappuccino cup in Steve’s hand. He liked the idea of it, making something for the fella he was sweet on, giving him something he liked, taking care of him, even if it was in such a small way. Tony took the cappuccino from his hands. Steve felt the tips of his ears go red as Tony took a sip of it, looking up at Steve from under his lashes. “Steve, this is amazing.” He said after a moment, taking another long sip. “How do you know how I like my coffee?”

“I notice things, you seem pretty keen on cappuccino.” Steve shrugged, picking up the empty cup when Tony set it down. His breakfast was getting cold, but he didn’t care, not with how warmly Tony was smiling at him.

“My hero, providing my caffeinated lifesblood.” He looked up at Steve, bit his bottom lip, “Hey Steve-” Tony’s phone rang in his pocket, and he sighed. “Raincheck, duty calls, I’ll see you tonight.” He was already backing towards the door, cup of yogurt clutched in one hand, reaching up to tap the little blue light in his ear. “Yes Bambi, I’ll be there soon, don’t take any lip from the shareholders.” He mouthed a _‘sorry’_ at steve, and waved to him and Jan, and then he was gone.

Jan kindly didn’t say anything when Steve sat down at the table to finally eat his breakfast, she did look quite pleased with the state of affairs however, and she stole a slice of bacon from his plate. Thor wandered in not too long afterwards, yawned and dropped into a chair with enough force to shake the table. His chair groaned but held. Steve passed him the orange juice.

He spent the day alternating between the gym and catching up on history in the library. The giant library bigger than several of the apartments in the building he grew up in put together. There were books on everything, from anthologies of ancient Greek plays to scientific papers about something called carbon nanotubes. He found a whole section on art and painting, and carried a good portion of the shelf over to one of the desks in the back, and settled in to read.

That was where Tony found him, sometime after midnight. He was still partially in his suit, but his ritzy dress shoes were off and in their place was a pair of bunny slippers. He shuffled over, dropping into the seat across from Steve and pushing a deck of cards towards him.

“You know when I can’t sleep, sometimes I play cards against my A.I., but I bet you can give me a better run for my money.” It was a tacit admittance that both of them might be having a less than stellar night, without prying. Steve appreciated the company, as well as the way Tony loosened his tie and rolled his sleeves up over his forearms. There was a band of gold around his arm there, Steve indicated it with a nod.

“Nice piece, from an admirer?” He wasn’t jealous, he _wasn’t._ He was just curious, that was all.

“Oh! No,” Tony laughed, touching over the gold with one gloved finger. “Gift from a very good friend, I wear it for good luck when I have shareholder meetings. Rhodey is a peach, you’d get along, I’m sure of it.” He looked so fond when he spoke of his friend. It was sweet, vulnerable in a way you might not think a fella like Tony Stark might be. It was also encouraging in a way, Tony definitely accepted jewelry. Maybe the cufflinks wouldn’t be as off the mark as he’d thought.

“If he gets along with you, I’m sure I would.” He said sincerely, and Tony seemed pleased to hear it too, if his sweet little smile was anything to go by. He was so handsome, so beautiful just sitting there across from Steve as if he had nowhere better to be. Steve swallowed, finding his tongue to speak again. “How was it anyway? The shareholder meeting that is?” At that Tony sat back, staring into his cards with great attention, giving a great blustering sigh.

“It was a royal pain in my ass, honestly. Roy, one of the shareholders, spent half the meeting droning on about meaningless crap, and the rest trying to give me some Patriot’s tickets.” Tony’s lip curled, he shuffled his cards around. “I don’t even like that team, it’s all about showing me how much money he’s throwing around. If he really wanted to impress me you would think he would figure out my favorite teams.”

“Patriots?” Steve asked, he couldn’t remember any team with that name from his time, maybe they were new.

“Oh, right, New England.” Tony said absently, Steve eyed his hands. He was definitely counting cards. Steve wondered if he even knew he was doing it. The answer distracted him though, and he groaned.

“Ugh, tell him to get stuffed. New England, what does he take you for?” It was an unspoken law-Steve was pretty sure it was actual New York state law-thou shalt not root for nor shall you attend in solidarity, a New England sporting event of any kind.

“Tell me about it! I know” Tony laughed and threw his hands up in aggravation. “Last time it was the Dallas Cowboys, can you believe? Even if it was a team I liked, I don’t even want to see him in a meeting, much less spend who knows how long with him trying to croon about stocks in my ear during a game.” He pulled a face, clearly envisioning this. Steve couldn’t believe the guy was trying to get a New Yorker to go root for a New England team.

“Well,” Steve said, sitting back in his chair, “I think you did the right thing, telling him off.”

“I tried to, but he just wouldn’t let up, and I had places to be, so I took the ticket. I don’t plan on going.” Tony frowned, so did Steve. He sure hated it when some lousy cad couldn’t take a hint. Maybe the guy was just socially inept and couldn’t tell Tony didn’t want to be friendly outside of work. “Wait!” Tony said, his eyes lit up, he looked as if some brilliant idea had occurred to him. “Come with me!” A wide smile was spreading across his face. He leaned forward, set his hands on the table like a man making some kind of business proposal. 

“What? Come with you where? Not to a game in New England I hope.” Steve grumbled when Tony began nodding and started speaking quickly, undeterred by Steve’s grousing.

“Yes, yes, we’ll go in, let me see who they’re playing,” Tony picked up his phone, scrolled around for a moment, “Seahawks colors, that’s who they’re playing, perfect, I love Seattle anyway.” Tony grinned, triumphant in his master plan. He drummed his fingers on the table. “What do you think, Cap, will you come with me? I’ll buy you as many hot dogs as you like.” Tony’s eyes were sparkling hopefully, Steve felt any objection he might have had slip away.

“Alright, but Tony you’ve only got one ticket.”  
  
“Trust in your local billionaire, Captain Handsome, I’ll have one for you tomorrow.” He put his cards down on the table. It was a royal flush.

“I know you’re counting cards, you weasel!” Steve said, laughing when Tony gasped in affront.

“I am not!” Tony squawked, his eyes going wide, as if Steve were blaspheming Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and maybe all the choirs of angels too. Steve pointed at his face, wagging his finger.   
  
“Look, I learned how to play from a card shark of a Sicilian grandmother, I know a card cheat when I see one.” He said with a seriousness he didn’t feel. Tony started shuffling the cards again. Steve raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“Stai scherzando?” Tony asked, he looked charmed, his cheeks were a little pink.

“No, non lo sono, la nonna era uno squalo e lo sei anche tu.” Steve answered back without missing a beat. Tony threw his head back and laughed delightedly. 

“Oh you are fantastic, Steve, truly full of surprises.” The way he said it made Steve feel warm down to his toes. As did the look he gave Steve later that night when they walked to his room together and Tony bid him goodnight. Steve watched him until he disappeared into his own room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stai scherzando-Are you joking
> 
> No, non lo sono, la nonna era uno squalo e lo sei anche tu.-No I'm not, Nonna was a shark, and so are you.


	3. Pyrophytic Adaptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More pining, more assumptions, a football game with uninvited guests, and Steve learning that even Captain America can't run on fumes forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million billion thank yous to Blossomsinthemist for her help with info about American Football, and just generally being amazing, ily. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are GREATLY appreciated and cherished. If you'd like to follow me on tumblr, [Here](https://ilunabarrean.tumblr.com/).

* * *

He didn’t sleep well that night again, but the dreams were not as terrifying as they had been. He woke, hard enough to pound nails and wrapped up in his blankets hopelessly. It took a good few minutes to work himself out, and thirty minutes with his hand in the shower to calm himself down enough to be presentable for breakfast. 

Opening the door out into the hallway, there was a thick envelope made of an odd crinkly white material resting in front of his door. Steve picked it up and tore open the package along the perforated line. A ticket to the football game he and Tony discussed the night prior fell out, along with a cottony wristband emblazoned with a hawk, and a note with one of Tony’s little Iron Man stick figures. He was giving a thumbs up, and a little speech bubble above him said _‘Go Seahawks!’_ There was also a neatly folded shirt in navy, green and silver. Steve pulled it out of the envelope and held it up to himself. It was a little large, which was perfect for wearing over his uniform. If they were going to be out in public, he had to be prepared. He wasn’t sure how he’d bring the shield, but he’d manage. Steve couldn’t help but feel excited. Tony wanted him to come to the game, had set this whole thing up, and had even given him gifts to go along with it. It was thoughtful, generous in the way Tony always was. 

Steve felt he needed to show some initiative as well, figure out a little more about the team he would be rooting for, and the number on his new shirt. The game wasn’t for another week, so Steve went to get his new tablet out and looked up the names of all the players on the Seahawks.

* * *

Two days later he was in the kitchen, finishing his third peanut butter and jelly sandwich when Tony walked in chatting away to Natasha. He only caught the tail end of the discussion, but it sounded like they were talking about medical terminology. Steve couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but it sounded like it wasn’t any of his business as it was.

Tony looked good as ever, in fine trousers and a waistcoat so fitted, Steve was not surprised to see it laced up the back when he went to get breakfast from the icebox. It was a pretty daring choice for an alpha to wear, but Steve liked it, hell, he loved it. The way it hugged his body, the way the trousers emphasized his lush rear and thighs. Steve swallowed, hurriedly looking down, it was rude to stare, and ruder still to be sitting there panting after his friend while he was just trying to get himself breakfast.

“Morning Steve.” Natasha said, breezing past him straight towards the basket of fresh muffins sitting on the counter. They were courtesy of Jarvis, Steve felt a little guilty for already having eaten two of them.

“Morning Natasha, anything on the agenda today?” He asked, taking another bite of his sandwich. 

Natasha shook her head, meticulously peeling the wrapper from her muffin as she spoke. “Not really, but Clint and I were thinking of running some training drills, would you like to join us?” That sure sounded nice, and maybe it would tire him out enough to sleep well that evening.

“You bet, wouldn’t miss it.” He said, sucking some peanut butter off his thumb, and then washing his hands. 

Tony had emerged from the icebox with one of his horrible green smoothies, and was busily slurping away at it while sitting at the counter behind Steve. He smiled around his straw when he noted Steve looking, but it seemed like he was in a hurry. It looked like he was trying to do up the French cuffs on his shirt, and not having a whole lot of success. Tony frowned, and then swore under his breath, as something tiny and round hit the floor and rolled.

“Dammit, I’m going to be late at this rate.” Tony grouched, letting the cuff he’d been working on hang open. He was holding a cufflink in his hand, it was obviously missing a stone. Steve felt his heart jump up into his throat. He wondered if the universe was trying to give him a sign. He thought of the cufflinks, his hopeless courting gift to Tony sitting in his bedside drawer. It was silly of course, he was sure Tony had plenty of cufflinks. Drawers and drawers of them even.

His mouth moved without his own permission. “I got a pair you could borrow.” His voice sounded far away, as if he was speaking from a distance. Oh no, Tony was looking at him. Of course he was, Steve had gone and opened his big yap. Still, it was too late to walk it back, and Tony was looking over at him in askance. “Sorry, you probably want to go grab some of your own.”

“No uh,” Tony licked his lips, came to stand closer to Steve, “I’d love to borrow them, if you don’t mind me wearing something of yours.” The way he said it made Steve feel hot all over and entirely stupid in the head. He was peripherally aware of Natasha looking between the two of them and then taking an impressively large bite of her muffin. Tony was still staring.

“Sure, sure thing fella, I’ll be right back.” He said, turning to very purposefully leave the kitchen. As soon as the doors swung shut behind him, he ran to his room, afraid if he was any slower his better sense would kick in and his nerve would fizzle out. 

The links were right where he’d left them, sitting on top of the other, more personal gift. The gift he would very likely never give, but this at least he could do. Tony would wear them all day. They’d be on his wrists, all day long, Steve’s gift. Steve swallowed, tucking the little red box against his chest and jogging back towards the kitchen.

Tony was speaking with Natasha when he returned, but he went quiet at Steve’s approach. He had both gloves on, but the right one, his thumb was exposed. Steve flushed, back in his day, that meant someone was angling for a kiss. He didn’t think that was the signal Tony was trying to give him, no matter how pretty his smile was when Steve got up close to him. 

“Here we go, one set of cufflinks for my pal, Iron Man.” Steve said, more steadily than he felt. 

Tony hummed, pulling his gloves fully on. “Saving me again, big guy, I could get used to the special treatment.” Tony blinked rapidly, pursing his lips. “Not that I’m special. To you. Of course.” 

“Sure ya’ are,” Steve said, smiling, “Only one Tony Stark out there, fella, that makes you pretty special in my book.” Maybe wearing his heart on his sleeve wasn’t the best way to go about things, but as all the Invaders never hesitated to tell him, he was a lousy liar.

“Wow, um, yeah, okay.” Tony’s eyes were wide and dark, he fumbled to open the velvet box with the links in it.

“Here, let me help you out there, I hear it’s trickier with gloves on.” The gloves Tony wore were a thin, supple leather, perfect for fine detail work, but he still let Steve take his hand. They were standing so close Steve could smell the fresh mint on Tony’s breath. He could have counted every individual inky black eyelash ringing Tony’s lids. Tony smelled good, spicy, clean, and very faintly, a little sweet. His hand trembled a minutely in Steve’s grip, and Steve realized his pulse was rabbiting away unsteadily. That was strange, maybe too much coffee. He breathed in deep when Steve fixed the first link in place, then placed his other wrist in Steve’s hand, easily, like he trusted him implicitly. Steve imagined fixing jeweled bracelets around that wrist, the kind you might gift after bonding. They’d sure look good on him. Not that that would ever happen. With that thought reality reasserted itself. Steve let go of Tony’s hand. The cufflinks glimmered at his wrists, they looked good there, like they belonged. Tony was staring up at him, his mouth slightly open.  
  
“I,” He licked his lips again, breathed in and blew it out, “Thank you Steve, they’re gorgeous, I’m sure I’ll have the nicest ones in the room.” He stepped back, smoothed his waistcoat, and straightened his tie, then reached out to give Steve’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll see you tonight, promise I’ll be home before three.” Tony said, turning on his heel to exit the room. Steve tried and failed to avoid watching him walk away. 

Back before the war, Steve would have given anything to hear someone say that. It was a point of pride, for a courting gift to be worn where visible, a sign the giftee not only liked the gift, but was receptive to further courting. Whether he knew it or not, Tony would be wearing his gift all through his day. Through board meetings and important calls, and inventing, and God knew what else. Steve stood closer to the counter, God he was hard. This was not good. 

“So,” Natasha said, breaking him out of the mental fog he had been quickly descending to, “I’ll just...leave you to your breakfast.” She stood up, grabbed another muffin, and then went sauntering out of the room.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” He swore, bracing his hands on the counter and leaning over it. He was not going to go to his room and bring himself off just because Tony’d let him put a pair of cufflinks on his shirt.

Except of course that was exactly what he was going to do.

* * *

Afterwards, he laid there panting atop the sheets. He was a mess, his chest covered in come and sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. He’d lost track of how many times he’d come sometime after the fourth. God he hoped nothing got on Tony’s blanket. He’d been so desperate, so keyed up, for anything, any hint of Tony. It was wrong of him, but he’d balled the heated blanket up, pressed his nose into it while imagining Tony was there with him. The blanket did not even smell like Tony anymore, but that was beside the point to Steve’s lizard brain.

Steve groaned, rolling up into a sitting position. He needed a shower badly, especially if he was going to take Clint and Natasha up on their training offer. For cripes sake, he couldn’t let his libido get in the way of a more seamless experience on the field.

By the time he made it down to the gym, scrubbed clean and presentable in his uniform, Hawkeye and Widow were already throwing each other around the mats. They opened ranks to let him join in, and soon the three of them were engaged in a free for all of trash talking and pulled punches. It was a heck of a time, he was even winded after it was all said and done. All of them were in fact. He felt over aware and hyper focused, but it was better than feeling his heart race while he tried to sleep, and it had been fun, sparring with members of the team with no danger at hand, no real risk.

He stayed in the training room long after Clint and Natasha left, working on the agility course and then strapping weights to himself to climb the rock wall near the back. He lost track of time until the growling of his stomach sent him on the search for food. 

That was where Tony found him, sitting at the kitchen table with a mouthful of Jarvis’ delicious spaghetti and an entire plate of garlic breadsticks.

“So,” Tony said, perching on the table nearby, “we meet again.”

“Mmph,” He replied, unwilling to speak with his mouth full. He tried to smile around the food.

“You know, I have to say, I am incredibly jealous of your ability to eat like that and still have the body of a Greek god.” His eyes looked bright, even though he was clearly tired. “It’s also patently unfair. I don’t look that cute with a mouth full of bread.” He sounded almost wistful. Steve didn’t think it was cute at all, he probably looked like a horse with its head caught in a bag of oats.

“Aw, Tony, it’s the serum, makes me like this.” He said, feeling his cheeks heat. 

“The serum did not make you cute, Rogers, that’s all you.” Tony murmured, he sounded fond. 

“You might sing a different tune if you’da seen me before the serum.” Steve shrugged. He was sure he wouldn’t have rated a second glance from a fella like Tony Stark before the serum gave him this body. Steve looked up at Tony, who had an expression on his face like he’d sucked on a lemon, and then the lemon insulted him.

“Excuse me. Steve I _have_ seen you before the serum, there are a lot of pictures floating around. They made comic books about you! I read them!” It was Tony’s turn to look a little red. He frowned, swiping a napkin from the stack in the center of the table and leaning in to dab some sauce from Steve’s face. Oh boy. 

“You read the comics about me?” Steve said, feeling unaccountably shy. He wondered if there was any truth to them, or if they’d been as over grandiose as the movies. 

“I, I did,” Tony’s gaze darted around, he sighed, “and I saw the pictures too. You were always a Hero, Steve.” He smiled, a little shyly himself, warm and sweet. “You put the handsome in Captain Handsome.” Tony winked, and pilfered one of Steve’s breadsticks, Steve let him, he could have it, he could have the entire plate of them if he wanted. Steve would make more. From another person it might have sounded like a line, and maybe flirting too, but Tony flirted the way a fish swam through water. He probably didn’t mean anything by it. It still made him feel overheated and off balance though. “Anyway, that’s not why I came to see you.” Tony sat back, and opened his hand. The cufflinks were there, resting in his gloved palm.  
  
“Tony,” He started, but Tony talked over him, as if he was trying to get it all out at once.

“You let me borrow these, so I’m here, returning them to their rightful owner. Thank you by the way, I showed them to everyone and told them Captain America gave them to me.” His hand shook a little bit, he wiggled his fingers, gently jostling the links in his palm. Steve couldn’t tell whether or not he was serious about that. But the thought of that, the suggestion that Tony might’ve walked around showing other people the cuff-links, his _courting_ gift. Steve dropped a hand below the table, dug his fingers into his own thigh to try and talk his traitorous body down.

“You should keep them.” He managed, barreling on before he could lose steam. He felt like he was on some precipice, the edge of some thrilling and terrible danger. “They looked good with your suit, and uh, the colors. They just, they looked really good on you.” He finished lamely.

“But,” Tony’s eyes were so wide, so blue, Steve desperately wanted to kiss him.

“Your other ones, they’re broken, not that you don’t have plenty of replacements but,” He took a deep breath, tried out his best smile, the one Tony always returned. “I just, you can keep em’.” His voice went a little wobbly, but Tony was smiling, a small, almost cautious smile. “If you uh,” He licked his lips, “if you like.”

“Oh, I would like.” Tony said softly, quietly. He closed his hand around the cufflinks, held them close to his body. “So they’re for me?”

“I know you probably have fancier ones, lots of them, and I’ll,” It hurt to say it, but he wasn’t going to force a gift on Tony, like that ass end of a shareholder with the game tickets, “I’ll take them back if you don’t want them of course.”

“No!” Tony said with surprising vehemence. “I want them! I really want them, Steve, trust me. They’re beautifully made.” He was smiling wide now, Steve’s favorite smile to see on his face. He laid his hand on Steve’s arm. “Thank you, I’ll wear them and think of you.”

Steve sucked in a breath. He wondered if Tony knew what that kind of statement meant to an alpha. Of course, he was probably an alpha himself, wasn’t he? Maybe he didn’t mean it that way, but Steve’s body didn’t give a damn about that. Tony in his gifts, Tony telling people the gift was from him, from Steve, thinking about him and displaying his approval, his choice. In ancient times gifts were worn to show a person was protected, that their partner or partners would fight either for them or by their side. Times had changed, and they weren’t in the times Before, but Steve’s body didn't’ know that. Tony’s words made some deep and buried part of himself hum with satisfaction and hope he hadn’t felt really well, ever. Steve was not a virgin, but with the war and his illness before, the possibility of courting, of having a special someone, that was never in the cards, not while the war raged, and then, well, he’d been frozen. Tony made him want the impossible, reached in and woke a part of himself he’d pushed aside when he stepped into Dr. Erskine’s Packard so long ago. 

“I’d like that, yeah, I’d like that a lot.” He finally said. It came out rough, his voice deeper than usual. Tony’s mouth moved, he didn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes looked dark and a little starry.

“Whatever makes you happy, Steve.” He said, sliding off the table. “I uh. I need to go put these somewhere safe.” He practically bolted from the room after that, he’d even left the stolen breadstick behind. Steve blinked a bit to clear the cobwebs from his mind. The room smelled a little spicy, Tony’s scent lingering even after he’d gone. 

He could also smell himself, and smell himself strongly. Steve flushed, maybe that was why Tony bolted in such a hurry. He didn’t smell _bad_ , but others told him it could become entirely unmistakable that he was an alpha. If Tony was also an alpha, that might be a little off putting. Steve frowned, feeling the arousal abate slightly, enough to at least make it back to his room without any awkwardness if he crossed anyone’s path in the hallway.

Inside the room, the little red box from the cuff-links was sitting on his dresser where he’d left it in the morning. It was empty, empty because Tony accepted his gift. Maybe not directly, and maybe Steve’s intentions weren’t clear, but Tony kept them all the same. Tony looked so sweet, so sweet the way he’d held the cuff-links, the way he almost seemed to treasure them. It felt as if there was a hand around Steve’s heart, when he held them out, Steve was well prepared to have his heart broken. The way it had been in the past, when he’d held out a gift, or poured his intentions into a letter. But Tony, he hadn’t done that. He could have dashed Steve’s hopes so easily, but here Steve was, with an empty box instead.

He flopped back on the bed, throwing an arm over his face. Relieved laughter bubbled out of him. He thought Tony would laugh at him, but no, it wasn’t like that at all. He hoped Sarah could see him now, daring to give a gift to the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen, a superhero, and a billionaire to boot.

He took two cold showers that night and still ended up with his hands down his pants and his face buried in Tony’s blanket. He supposed it could have been worse, it did help him finally get a few hours of sleep. Enough to be sharp and at the ready should any Avengers alert sound.

* * *

The next few days were calm, however, which was a good thing and a bad thing. Good, in the sense Steve was happy no civilians were being terrorized or property was being damaged. Good also in that in his spare time he’d found an art supply store and bought up more supplies than he ever would have dreamed of during or before the war. It was an astronomical sum of money to spend on a hobby, but it was something to do in the long hours of the night when sleep eluded him. But it was also bad in the sense that Steve couldn’t relax even more than usual. As he laid there desperately striving for sleep, unable to even concentrate enough to paint, he wished suppressants affected him in some way. Back in the war, he’d tried them on General Phillips’ behest while they tested where his new biological baselines were. All different combinations and all different doses. They all did a whole lot of nothing, his body burned them out faster than he could take them. Or the doses required made him violently ill for a few hours before blowing away like so much smoke. 

In the morning there was a hesitant knock at his door. When he opened it, Tony was standing there. He was in a lovely navy colored suit with an expensive silk sheen to it, but what struck Steve most were his earrings; delicate gold moons hanging from emerald cut rubies. It wasn't unheard of for an alpha to wear earrings, but usually they would be simple things, Steve thought they looked good though, they suited him. 

"Reveille, reveille,” He said with a smile, but it quickly dropped off his face when he noted Steve in his sweatpants and shirt. “Did I wake you? I can come back later, sorry-”

Steve shook his head, holding the door open wider in invitation. “No, I’m up, I was just about to go on a run.” That was a lie, but he needed some excuse to be awake and fully dressed early in the morning. He didn’t have a job like Tony’s to be off too. 

“Alright, well, if you’re sure.” Tony said, pressing his lips together, but walking into the room when Steve motioned for him to come in. 

“Everything alright?” Steve asked. Tony, shot him a little half smile and sat on the bed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Steve wondered if it would be wholly improper to ask him to roll around on the blanket so it would smell like him again. He knew it was an unacceptable thought, but his hindbrain sure thought it sounded brilliant. 

“Everything is great, actually, I came by to tell, well-to ask you-to pack a bag, if you want.” He shifted on the bed, tapped his fingers together. It made his rings jingle. Tony was, Steve blinked, Tony was _nervous._  
  
“Pack a bag? We going somewhere?” Steve asked, already itemizing what to throw in his go bag.  
  
“Yes, the game is tomorrow, I thought we would fly in to PVA, check into our hotel in Foxborough, you know, make sure we make it there on time.” That was awfully luxurious, flying out someplace just to see a football game, even if it was in Massachusetts. 

“Oh,” Steve said, his eyebrows climbing upwards, “how long do I have to pack, when’s the flight leaving?”  
  
“It’s my private jet, it goes when we get there.” Tony smiled winningly, sitting back on the bed, resting his palms on the covers. The motion pulled his jacket sleeves up enough for Steve to see the cufflinks he’d given him glittering away there. Steve swallowed, his cock gave an interested twitch in the sweatpants. Steve bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper. Tony was still speaking, completely oblivious to Steve’s inner turmoil. “That is of course um, if you want to. I realize I’m just kind of springing this on you.” He laughed nervously, rising from the bed and taking a few steps toward the door. “Sorry, I’ll go, this was dumb, nevermind me.”

“Tony, I want to go with you.” He said slowly. Tony stopped in his tracks, turning to face Steve. 

“What, really?” He looked a little blown away, all big blue eyes and sweetness. Steve didn’t know whether he wanted to hug him more or kiss him.

“I already agreed to go to the game, read up on our team and everything.” Steve said, continuing on with as much earnestness as he could muster. Tony’s eyes went a little wider, his mouth opened and then shut. “Just give me a moment and I’ll be packed in a jiffy. Say, how do you think I can bring my shield?” 

“Well,” Tony said, he looked pleased, “funny you should ask.”

* * *

Hours, and several body scans later, Steve climbed into Tony’s private jet holding something that looked like an artist’s portfolio. It was lightweight, but padded on the inside, with a set of biolocks on the handle. There were little compartments all over it, and all sorts of thoughtful additions which would make it suitable for carrying real art supplies, and not just his shield. It was clearly not something Tony just whipped up, he’d been working on it. 

Tony smiled over at him while they buckled into their seats before lift-off. He very apologetically spent the majority of the flight alternating between his laptop and calls for work. Steve used the time to sketch, he drew Tony, a phone against his ear, leaning against one of the plane’s circular windows. The flight was short, and Steve marveled at how quiet the cabin was. Even the most luxurious planes back in the forties would have seemed like buckets of bolts compared to Tony’s sleek, efficient jet.

A car was waiting for them when they arrived, a bright purple convertible that rumbled even standing still. Steve’s eyebrows rose when Tony turned to him with a grin. “Wanna drive it?” He said, “The GPS will lead you to where we need to go.”

“You trust me to drive your ritzy flivver?” If he was being honest, he was excited to give it a go. It made him miss the motorcycle he’d driven during the war, he wondered if it was sitting in some museum somewhere.

“Steve,” He said, climbing into the passenger side, “I trust you with my life on the field, of course I do.” He smiled easily, as if he wasn’t just casually speaking to Steve’s heart. “I trust you to keep me safe.”

“Oh, alright well, I’ll try to get us there in one piece.” He said, putting his hand on the driver’s side door. A handle slid out of the door and it unlocked.

“Estimated time of arrival is forty minutes with current conditions.” A voice said from the car’s speakers. 

“Your car talks.” He said, looking over at Tony, who shrugged. “Of course your car talks.” Steve slid into the driver’s seat, looking at all the buttons and glowing dials. It wasn’t too bad, there was still a gearbox with a shifter. He’d been reading about new cars, automatic transmissions were around back in the twenties, but they were far too rich for most people’s blood. This car was an automatic and then some. A little button started it, he’d read about that.

“That’s just the GPS, they all talk now.” Tony said, leaning forward to swipe his fingers over a glass panel set into the dash. It zoomed in a blinking yellow dot, which must have represented where they were. 

“Alright, let’s see what this old Betty can do.” Steve said, shifting the car into drive, and putting his foot down on the pedal. Tony whooped as they peeled out of their spot on the tarmac.

He gunned it all the way to their destination, with Tony laughing and windblown beside him. When they arrived and hopped out of the car, Tony’s hair was a riot of disheveled curls, his suit was still perfectly pressed, but Steve thought he looked even better than usual a little messy. 

“You drive like a maniac, Rogers, I approve.” Tony said, pushing his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose, leaning down to grab a briefcase from the rumble seats in the back.

“Sweet talker.” Steve said, walking around to the trunk to grab his and Tony’s bags.

“Steve, you’re not carrying my bags too.” Tony walked over, held his hand out. Steve sidestepped him, walking through the doors into the lobby.

“I’m the pack mule in this equation, Tony, ‘sides, this stuff isn’t even heavy.” It wasn’t, he wasn’t lying about that. He knew Tony probably had all sorts of tech in his bags, but all of it was about as light as air, and his clothing didn’t rate much weight either. 

“You show off.” Tony laughed, half skipping to catch up with Steve. “Fine, carry my bags, oh strong alpha, but you have to let me take you out to dinner later.”

“You got yourself a deal.” He said, standing behind Tony while they were checked into their room. Which ended up being a huge suite with a view of Gillette Stadium, where the game would be played the next day. There was a sitting room, with doors that led off to individual bedrooms with attached bathrooms. Steve didn’t even want to think about how much the place had cost to rent. 

Dinner was a surprisingly casual affair. Tony took him to a pub style restaurant with big plush booths, and about a hundred or so beers on tap. He ate a big messy hamburger and stole fries from Steve’s plate, but declined to order his own, claiming stolen food always tasted better.

It was nice, relaxed and casual in a way he didn’t think stepping out with Tony could have been. Of course they weren’t stepping out, not like that, but it was still nice. Tony chattered away, drank copious amounts of perrier, and happily signed autographs for the other restaurant patrons. He was charming, witty, and so kind even when their meal kept getting interrupted. He even drew one of his Iron Man stick figures on a napkin for a little tyke who bravely came over with his ma’.

Afterwards they returned to their suite, and Tony apologetically unpacked a laptop and a tablet, and sat down to work. He was only partially still in his suit. The waistcoat, tie, and jacket were hanging up somewhere in the bedroom. The little glowing lights were back in his ears. Steve now knew that was a phone headset. He was speaking rapidly in a language Steve didn’t understand. He sounded vaguely annoyed, crossing one leg over the other and picking his tablet off the coffee table. His shoes were off, and he was down to his dress socks. A thin gold anklet was visible now, he wondered who’d gifted that, anklets were a pretty personal gift. Not as much as a necklace or a choker, but still familiar. He imagined giving one to Tony himself, kneeling at Tony’s feet and doing up the little clasp. He swallowed.

“I’m going to bed.” He announced to the room, like a bozo. Tony looked up from his tablet, clearly startled. 

He touched a finger to the headset, “Al...right, you okay there Steve?” He asked.

“Yeah just.” He shrugged, feeling like the world’s biggest dummy. “Just letting you know.” He said, and hurriedly closed himself into his bedroom. There was silence for a few moments from the sitting room, and then Tony knocked on his door quietly.

“Steve, I’m sorry, did I do something, or,” Aw hell, Tony sounded worried now, that was the last thing he wanted.

“I’m just tired!” Steve called through the door. Somewhere the universe was laughing at him, he was sure of it.

“Okay, well, I’m going to keep working for a little while, I’ll be here if you need me.” Tony said, and then there was the sound of him shuffling back over to the couch. 

Steve slumped back onto the bed, raking his hands over his face. Well, he’d royally messed that up. Tony probably thought he was losing his marbles. 

He listened to the muffled hum of Tony’s voice until he heard the lights click off, and the sitting room went silent. The bed was comfortable, but his heated blanket and his water bottles were all the way back in New York. He was keyed up too, his body seemingly aware that the person he wanted most was just a short ways away. Steve took a few deep breaths and blew them out. The game was just a few hours away, Tony would notice if he was a sleep deprived zombie, and Steve didn’t want to have to explain why he’d been awake all night. _‘Yeah Tony, I couldn’t sleep all night because I’m in a constant rush, and I was thinking of your ankles locked around my back.’_ Sure, that would go over about as well as the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Steve groaned, knocking his head back into the pillows.

* * *

He finally managed to fall asleep a few hours before dawn thankfully. A fitful sleep he woke up from feeling equal parts aroused and melancholy. He went to the hotel gym to try and work off some of the excess energy in his system, but returned before the game to shower and change into his uniform, and pull the Seahawks gear Tony sent him over it. He grabbed the portfolio with his shield in it for good measure. 

When he emerged from his room, Tony was sitting out in the living area in a button up shirt, dress slacks, and a Seahawks tie. He had the elegant briefcase from the car in his hand, and he was wearing the cufflinks. Steve felt his heart rate kick up again. He smiled wide upon catching sight of Steve, and then guided him down to the lobby with a warm gloved hand pressed to the small of Steve’s back. It was a sweet gesture, like something a fella might do for another while out on a date. Steve was sure his ears were a little pink the entire walk over to the stadium. 

When they arrived at their seats up in the club area, Tony immediately set his briefcase beneath his seat, and Steve put the portfolio behind them, where it would cause the least disruption to anyone walking around. A tall reedy looking beta was already there waiting for them. He was a little stringy, with small watery eyes and one of the worst toupees Steve had ever seen. 

“Roy, nice to see you.” Tony said, really kind of obnoxiously. If this was the guy that couldn’t take a hint, then Steve felt the obnoxious approach was definitely warranted. Roy’s eyes narrowed, he stared at Steve, who moved a little closer to Tony, and held his arm out.

“Hi.” He said, fixing the now fidgeting man with his most disapproving look, “I’m Captain America.” The guy seemed to wilt, but he also looked tremendously annoyed.

“Did you bring Captain America on our date?” Roy said, his voice had gone alarmingly high, like a rat in a trap, or maybe a weasel. Tony rested his head on Steve’s shoulder and smiled over at Roy in a good approximation of a shark.

“This was never a date, Roy, and yes, now clasp arms so we can sit and I can buy him food. He’s a _big_ boy, he needs his energy.” The way he said it left no doubt that it was an innuendo. Steve almost felt bad for the way Roy looked up at him and swallowed, but he Still clasped the guys arm nice and solidly. Tony had said no to this guy on many occasions, he’d used his status as shareholder to try and con Tony into a date even. Steve really didn’t feel that sorry for him at all on second thought. The guy was lucky Tony wasn’t the type to knock someone’s block off for being a pushy horse’s ass.

True to his word, after they took their seats, Tony sauntered off whistling, returning with arms laden with a huge box of food and foam memorabilia, while Roy sat silent and fuming the entire time. 

“Food for the Captain of my heart, I bestow upon thee,” He pulled a big paper container out of his box, “the nacho platter.” 

Steve took it from him, staring down at the huge plate of what looked like some kind of chips and bright yellow sauce, meat, and spicy smelling red stuff. He could feel his cheeks turning a little pink from the way Tony had gone about it, but he was so hungry. Steve sniffed it, and then popped one of the chips in his mouth. It was delicious, spicy and hot.

“Wow,” He said, looking up at Tony wonderingly, “these are pretty choice, what else ya’ got?” 

Tony grinned, plopping down in the seat between he and an increasingly vexed looking Roy. “Hot dogs, corn dogs, more chips, peanuts, a bag of caramel corn for me, but I’ll share if you ask, sunshine.” He looked so fond, as if he really was excited to be sitting next to Steve offering him a king’s banquet worth of stadium food. 

“Are you feeding a man or an army?” Roy muttered.

Tony turned to look at him, a vicious little smile on his face, “One man army, oh, the stamina.” 

Steve tried not to choke on his nachos while Tony sat back in his chair and stuffed caramel popcorn into his mouth. He looked almost gleeful, and Roy, well, he kind of looked like someone had spit in his milk. 

The music kicked up at the start of the first quarter, the announcer’s voice reverberating around the stadium to the cheers of the fans. The stadium was packed to the gills, Steve had to admit, their seats were fantastic. They must have been pricey as all get out, and Tony had bought him a ticket. Steve flushed a little, and grabbed a hot dog from the box when Tony held it up. 

Down on the field, while there was some kind of dispute about the validity of a play, Tony pulled a big foam hat out of his box. It was shaped in a circle, and looked a lot like the Statue of Liberty’s crown. He grinned, and Steve helpfully inclined his head so Tony could lean up and settle it on his head. He patted Steve’s hair, then sat back to admire his handiwork. “There he is, the sentinel of liberty”

“Aw Tony, shaddup.” Steve said with a laugh, taking a bite of his second hot dog.

“Don’t rain on my parade, this is a dream of mine.” Tony replied seriously.

During the second quarter Steve nearly dropped his chips while yelling at the ref about a bad call. Tony was laughing beside him, yelling cheers and encouragement down to the Seahawks and waving around a big foam finger enthusiastically. The game was going well for them, a feat Tony said was impressive, given the Patriots’ record. He was just about to ask Tony where the nacho stand was when a raucous cheer went up around the stadium.

“Oh,” Tony said, going still beside him. “Look, we’re on the kiss cam.” He pointed, and sure enough, the huge screens around the stadium reflected their faces back. Tony waved, the cheers got louder. “We’re supposed to kiss but,” Tony said out of the corner of his mouth.

“I get the idea.” He said, then took one of Tony’s gloved hands in his, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. The crowd went wild, but Steve could barely hear them. Tony was staring at him, his mouth a little open, Steve kissed his hand one more time for good measure, and then turned to wave at the camera, tucking Tony’s arm against his side, curling their fingers together. Tony’s hand felt warm against his, he squeezed it, and Tony squeezed back. There were camera flashes everywhere.

“Oh you’ve done it now.” Tony said, but he sounded delighted. He shot the camera a salute with his free hand, and a round of clapping and cheering met the action. Steve had performed in front of crowds before, but this was something else.

The game went on, but he didn’t let go of Tony’s hand until the halftime show began. The Patriots cheerleaders were down on the field performing impressively, one of the guys had just thrown a tiny woman high into the air when the ground rumbled ominously.

“Did you feel that?” Roy said nervously, and then all Hell broke loose.

The ground rumbled more, then shook violently. The cheer crew went running off to the sidelines as the turf was ripped open by some kind of gigantic mechanized drill. Through the holes in the ground, dozens of diminutive humanoid creatures streamed out, making way for a stocky guy in a green jumpsuit and goggles.

“Oh, this should be good.” Tony said, he was already standing up, pressing his hand to two points on his left wrist. Black shining ribbons twisted from that point, encasing his body in a sleek black flightsuit.

“HARK, IT IS I, THE MOLE MAN, I HAVE COME TO CLAIM NEW YORK IN THE NAME OF THE LAND OF SUBTERRANEA WITH MY LOYAL MOLOIDS!” The apparent moleman yelled. Steve hurriedly pressed his hand to the portfolio to undo the locks.

“You’re in Massachusetts, Jackass, did you make a wrong turn at Albuquerque?” Tony called, kicking open his briefcase to reveal shining red metal. He gestured, and it flowed towards him almost like liquid, locking in place to form the Iron Man armor. It was a different model than the one he used on the field, a little bulkier, but still, what a look. “God, Reed owes us for this.” Iron Man’s modulated voice sounded annoyed.   
  
“C’mon Iron Man, it’s showtime, whaddya say we put on a halftime show of our own.” He said, after pulling his Seahawks shirt off, and pulling on the cowl. He hoped his headwings weren’t squished. 

“Ask and ye shall receive, gorgeous.” Tony said, and then whipped him up into the sky. There were times in this new century where he felt less alive than dead, as if he was merely sleepwalking. But this, he was meant to do this. To stand back to back with his team, with Iron Man. He belonged here.

Iron Man dropped him into the largest group of Moloids, and the rush was on him in force. Steve immediately went to work. It was like smacking around a bunch of sentient bowling pins. Everywhere he swung his shield, they went flying. He bet Thor would have had a grand time of this. He would probably be sore he missed out. He wasn’t even winded, solely focused on containing the Moloid horde, protecting the crowd-which had decided this was an incredible show, and was cheering raucously from the stands- and keeping Iron Man’s path clear.  
  
Above the fray, Iron Man made a loop, and then called a pool shot, before lining up and blasting the Moloids trying to climb up into the stands back. The crowd cheered. There was a moloid trying to crawl up his leg. It let out a horrible caterwauling sound, and he spun, kicking the little creature off in a high wide arc. He didn’t stop to watch where it landed, but he heard the announcer yell ‘Field goal!’, and saw screens pop up with the refs calling it. Over the comms Tony was laughing.

One of the Moloids shot something at Iron Man, and he caught it in the chest, it looked like on purpose. He used the momentum to spin backwards, coming to a halt before he hit the stands, and then rocketing back to come to a skidding stop in front of Mole man.

“Big mistake, Mole Man.” Iron Man said, holding out his repulsored palms. Steve threw the shield at a few straggling Moloids trying to sneak up on the armor. Mole man sneered, pulling up some kind of long gun-like apparatus and pointing it at Steve, where he stood on the field. “Bigger mistake.” Iron man dropped his palms, his chest lit up blue.

“Iron man, NOOO!” Mole Man shrieked, as Iron Man hit him with the unibeam and blew him backwards. It was a shot with much less power in it than the armor usually doled out. At full strength, or even half strength, Mole Man would have been toast. As it was, he was out cold on the ground.

In the distance there were sirens. Steve pulled some zip ties from one of his belt pouches and jogged over to bind Mole Man's arms behind his back. There were much better restraints, but he didn’t think Mole Man was coming to anytime soon. 

There were unconscious Moloids everywhere. Steve stood up with his hands on his hips surveying the scene. Behind him the turf crunched as Iron Man walked over to sling an arm over his shoulder.

“Booyah.” He said, holding his fist out for Steve to bump. 

The crowd went wild.

* * *

After the authorities arrived and carted off Mole Man and the Moloids, the whole stadium seemed to stream out on the field to clasp their arms and congratulate them. They signed autographs, and then they posed with the Seahawks for pictures. They each got signed shirts from the entire team, and cute mini commemorative footballs, along with a standing invitation to the best seats in CenturyLink Field back in Seattle.

Before they left, Iron Man paused to do a dance in the endzone before jogging back over to Steve and flying him back up to their seats in the stands. “Sorry, always wanted to do that.” He said, letting the armor recede back into the briefcase. 

“So I guess that’s a no on another date.” Roy said. Tony turned to regard him incredulously. The undersuit slid back into wherever he was keeping it. Tony sighed, and stripped off his gloves, lowered his gaze and rolled the leather up into his hand. 

“N.O.” Tony said. Steve almost felt bad for the guy, almost.

Back at the hotel, Tony set up holoscreens for the Avengers to debrief with them. As expected they were all extremely put out over not being involved in the battle with Mole Man. Tony called Reed after that, and Steve staggered off to go lay in the hotel bed as the drop hit him. 

“How are you doing in there?” Tony asked from behind the closed door a few minutes later. 

“M’fine.” Steve said. His teeth were chattering. 

Tony blessedly didn’t press, leaving him to ride out the rest of the come down without any embarrassing slips on Steves part. At some point the room got warmer, he didn’t know how, but he was pretty sure the heater was on. He wondered if Tony had something to do with that. The suite was quiet, he heard Tony walking around in front of the door in the sitting area multiple times, heard him talking out on the balcony instead of indoors, and even then in hushed tones. When Steve finally emerged, there were take out containers waiting for him on the coffee table. 

Tony was there too, drinking coffee in the kitchenette, with a big bowl of something at his right elbow. When he noted Steve, he smiled hesitantly, and came over in his stockinged feet, holding a steaming bowl of soup out to Steve, who took it wordlessly. Tony nodded in approval and sat on the couch when Steve did with his left side pressed up tight to Steve’s in a long point of warm contact. His shirt was unbuttoned partially, his inky hair a little sweaty at the temples, he had a tablet in his free hand, he looked to be writing an email. Steve put his spoon down.

“You’re hot.” Steve observed. 

“Thank you.” Tony said, tapping away at his tablet.

“Tony.” Steve groaned, his ears were warm. “I mean you’re sweating. Did you turn on the heater?”

Tony shifted, turning towards him on the couch. Steve’s eyes were drawn down to the open vee of his shirt. There was a scar just visible. The top of it thin and growing wider as it disappeared beneath the fabric, like a shooting star emblazoned into his flesh. Tony noted his stare and cleared his throat, doing up the buttons with one hand. “You were cold.” He said simply.

“Tony, you don’t have to do all that fella,” He started. 

“What, turn up the heat when I can see you shivering? I don’t think so, Cap. I think that’s exactly what I have to do. Especially since...” He bit his bottom lip then snapped his mouth shut. Steve wondered what he’d been about to say, but he didn’t want to ask anything else of him. 

“Button up I mean.” He took Tony’s gloved hand in his. “I’ve seen scars before, you probably got that doing something wild and heroic, huh, mister?” As soon as he said it, he knew it had been the wrong thing to say. Tony went pale, he looked a little sick, scooting away from Steve and climbing off the couch.

“Don’t worry about it being warm, I have an ac unit in my room.” He said, his voice sounded choked and thin.

“Tony,” He said, but he was already gone, the door to his part of the suite shut. Steve swore quietly to himself.  
  
Tony however, wasn’t gone for long. He reemerged a few minutes later looking utterly hangdog and miserable. He sat back down on the couch, his lips twisted downwards in a frown.

“I shouldn’t have left like that. You’re not feeling well. I let my stupid feelings get in the way of what I,” He licked his lips, pressed against Steve’s side again. He smelled the way he usually did, like warm metal and spice, but there was a hint of something softer there, like vanilla. “What I should be doing.”

“Tony, your feelings aren’t stupid, I did something that made you uncomfortable, that’s not your fault.” He wondered who’d made Tony feel that way in the past, if someone had convinced him he needed to put up some kind of front. He supposed that might be the pot calling the kettle black though. 

“Isn’t it though?” Tony said, half under his breath, then shook his head. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not important anyway.”

“Sure it is.” He dared to put an arm around Tony, holding him around the shoulders. He was so warm. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.” Tony said glumly. 

“Okay, sure thing then fella, I won’t press, but, you know, if you ever need an ear, I’ve got your back, Iron Man.” He said, unwinding his arm from around Tony to take both of his gloved hands. He rubbed his thumbs over the smooth leather covering Tony’s knuckles, and Tony just stared as if he’d never seen anything like him before.

They didn’t talk about it after that. Tony sat by his side working and eating while Steve leeched what warmth he could get. By the time he went to his room, Tony’s shirt was semi undone again. Steve didn’t comment on the scar again, Tony clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it, if he ever would be. 

He slept less than two hours that night, in the morning he knew he looked rough, but Tony didn’t comment, for which he was grateful. It seemed they were both leaving some things undiscussed.

Tony was quiet on the drive back to the airport, but warmed up and chattered away during the short return flight to New York. Back at the mansion he slung an arm over Steve’s shoulders and squeezed him close, promising to send him a new uniform because his old one ripped during the whole debacle with the Moloids. In truth Steve was not even aware there was a rip in his uniform, but Tony seemed dead set on offering a replacement, waving off Steve’s assertions that he could sew up the tear with a decisive gesture of his hand. He seemed insulted just by the prospect of Steve taking a needle and thread to the suit.

“That suit does not offer enough shielding, Steve, big guy, I can make you something much better, God!” He said, and then went marching off towards his lab, only to appear a few days later looking mussed and bright eyed, and definitely over caffeinated, holding an incredible scale mailed tactical suit. It was comfortingly heavy, but still light and easy to move in, with enough pouches for all his gear, and, as Tony explained somewhat hesitantly, after a fight he could activate the heating system running throughout the entire suit. There were no words for that kind of kindness, so Steve gathered Tony close in a hug, careful not to squeeze too tightly. Tony was stiff at first, but then relaxed and returned the hug with enthusiasm, pressing gloved palms to Steve’s back and not letting go until Steve stepped back. 

After he left, Steve wondered if Tony had started wearing a new cologne. Beneath the typical scent of his lab, he’d smelled sweeter than usual, like he’d been chewing on a cube of brown sugar. It was unusual for an alpha to smell sweet, really, but Tony Stark was _unusual,_ to say the least. Steve licked his lips, if he concentrated, he could almost taste it. He wondered how Tony would react if Steve were to pull his collar down, press his nose against his throat, see what an alpha like Tony Stark _really_ smelled like, close to the skin. God that was inappropriate, Steve winced, shoving that thought away with grim determination. He was supposed to go shopping with the team, that was not the time to begin one of his guilty fantasy marathons about his friend and teammate.

Shopping ended up consisting of Jan, Natasha, and Clint forcing him to try on increasingly ridiculous looking get ups at various department stores. Well, he thought they were ridiculous, but Jan insisted he looked handsome, and the others agreed. Outnumbered and charmed, he’d spent a king’s ransom on new pants, shoes, a few jackets, and shirts Natasha said made him look _‘built like a brick shithouse_ ’. He didn’t know what that meant, and it sounded kind of negative, but Natasha insisted it was a good thing, so he’d bought a stack of them. 

They were the first new clothes he’d acquired in this new century, other than his uniform and the sweats Tony gifted him that first night in the mansion. He was setting down roots, building a home. The drawers in his room were beginning to be filled with his belongings. He wasn’t going back to the forties, he was staying in the present, and he was finally beginning to accept it.

* * *

Tony was scarce for the next two weeks, but still showed up for movie night. He was curled in the center of Natasha, Clint and Jan, eating a sandwich when Steve walked in to join them. The lettuce slid out of the sandwich and down onto Clint’s face, where it was pillowed on his thigh. “Oh my God.” He said. Clint ate the lettuce. Tony ignored him, staring over at Steve with wide eyes.

“What is it, Tony? You alright?” Steve blinked over at him.   
  
Tony’s mouth moved for a moment, and then he slowly lowered the sandwich. “Why are you dressed like a centerfold, Steve?”

“What?” He exclaimed, his ears were burning a fiery red, he just knew it.

“He’s kidding, come sit.” Natasha demanded.

“I, I,” Tony put a hand to his chest, “am not kidding. I feel like he should be on a commemorative plate. As a thirst trap.”

“Tony don’t be a pill.” Steve said, laughing. “Natasha and Jan helped, they said it was stylish.” 

“I tried to convince him a skirt would be stylish, but I was sabotaged.” Clint muttered. Tony blinked, rate of blinking increasing as Steve came over to sit on the ground in front of the group and leaned against their legs. On the screen a pair of gigantic robots were engaged in a brawl of epic proportions.

“What are we watching anyway?” Steve asked, sighing as one of Tony’s gloved hands slid into his hair. He didn’t leave it there long, but wow, that felt nice.

“Transformers,” Jan said, she was tucked against Tony’s side, with Clint laying across them both. She had a bowl of popcorn, and was resting it on Clint, occasionally throwing kernels into his mouth, which he caught surprisingly well. Marksman, he thought fondly.

“Don’t worry about the plot, Cap, just enjoy the giant robots hitting each other.” Clint said. He looked about as content as a cat laying in a sunbeam. Steve settled in to watch the movie. At some point Tony’s hand slipped back into his hair and he shivered hard enough to jostle Tony’s leg. Thankfully he didn’t comment on it.

The movie went on, on the screen, the main character was running around while explosions went off everywhere. He had terrible form. The feeling of Tony’s hand slipping out of his hair made him look up. Tony leaned down, his lips next to Steve’s ear. “You look nice, um.” He smelled like caramel popcorn. “By the way, I don’t know if I made that clear. You look great.”

“Aw thanks, Tony, means a lot, coming from such a snappy dresser.” He meant it too, Tony always looked so good, even coming off engineering binges with his hair a riot of curls and a smudge of grease on his face. 

“You know, it’s illegal how cute you are.” Tony murmured, cutting Steve off when he started to speak. “No, I know what I’m about, that face is a ten year prison sentence in the Dakotas, I’m pretty sure.” He went on, it sounded like he was picking up steam. Steve thunked his head onto Tony’s knee, and he stopped though, sitting back and just resting his hand on the back of Steve’s neck. It was comforting, relaxing, especially when Tony began absently rubbing his thumb there. 

Some indeterminate amount later he realized he’d dozed off with his head on Tony’s knee. The room was quiet, the lights drawn down. Tony’s head was leaned back on the couch, he was holding his phone over his face, the blue light from it leaving the rest of him in darkness. Upon feeling Steve stir, he set his phone down and smiled.

“Hey big guy, you ready to go to bed?” He sounded so fond, so sweet, and a little worried too. 

“Yeah.” He sighed, and Tony stood up, holding out his gloved hands for Steve to take.

“Up then, let’s get you to bed, I don’t have the armor, so I sadly can’t carry you.” He wiggled his fingers at Steve encouragingly, pulling Steve up to stand with impressive strength when Steve accepted the hand up.

He walked Steve to his bedroom, popping his head in the doorway and leaving him with a murmured ‘ _Get some rest_.’ Steve wished it were so easy. Away from the team, away from their warmth and that sense that everyone was safe, it was so much harder to sleep. He tossed and turned, but finally managed to tire himself into another night of restless sleep filled with strange dreams and the cold.

* * *

He made it another month before finding out about weighted blankets. He bought two of the heaviest, highest quality ones he could find, but it was no substitution for a real living person. His nights alternated between pacing his room, working out until he was forced to close his eyes, or reading about everything he’d missed in the library. Tony often came to sit with him, offering no judgment, and relaxing conversation. He was incredibly patient with all of Steve’s questions, and seemed perfectly content to sit there, and pull up articles, or explain things in great detail. Sometimes he even pressed close beside Steve, which was lovely, but he always looked worried, and as if he had something to say.

They didn’t speak about it however, that Steve was looking worse and worse, even though his performance on the field never suffered, and he still spoke to the press with the smile he’d worn in the old film reels. 

It all came to a head one afternoon during an Avengers alert. They were fighting two of Thor’s countrymen. Amora the Enchantress, who was both beautiful and dangerous, and Executioner, who he guessed was there to cheer her on and punch things. He supposed it was a job.

He didn’t need the comms to hear Thor bellowing mightily, and the lightning was pretty loud too, but it was good, fighting with the team at his side was always good, no matter how exhausted he was, how jittery and unsteady he felt when rushes and drops ebbed and flowed into each other like water. He was fine, he could take it.

Amora stepped out in front of him and a beam of magic stretched from her. He raised his shield to block it, but the modern New York city block was gone. Amora was gone. Bucky was standing across from him looking the way he’d looked the last time Steve saw him alive. Perhaps if the exhaustion were not so intense, the obvious illusion would have been more apparent, but in that moment it was all so real. 

“Bucky!” He cried, running towards his friend, the man he failed to protect so completely. He disappeared before Steve could reach him. Steve’s head whipped up, seeing a flash go around the corner. There he was. There was noise in his ear, garbled voices. He ignored them, giving chase to that apparition.

He caught up with Bucky in Central Park. Except that wasn’t Bucky. Bucky was dead, gone, because Steve was not able to protect him. Even while chasing the illusion he knew, but there was still a hope, some distant sliver of possibility. 

“Oh poor Captain.” Amora said, with Bucky’s face. “Did you lose something?”  
  
Steve clenched his jaw, and sent the shield flying.  
  
She screamed as it hit her, clearly not expecting Steve to strike out at something wearing Bucky’s face. The rushing in his ears grew stronger, he caught the shield on the rebound. All at once New York City was back, or forward, depending on how you looked at it. There were helicopters up in the sky, beside him the wind kicked up, and Thor landed just as Amora got to her feet. He could hear Giant Man over the comms making short work of Executioner.

“Hands up, sparkles,” Iron man said, hovering just behind Steve, his palms pointed towards Amora with the repulsors a bright glowing blue. Amora shrieked in response, magic ballooning forth from her in an explosion like a dam breaking. Steve jumped up to shield Tony, but was caught up by him instead, the jet boots carrying them up in a steep ascent that made Steve very glad he’d not eaten soup for breakfast. “God I hate magic.” Tony said over the comms.

“We need to get at her all at once.” Steve said. “She’s trying to split us up, fight us one on one.” There were affirmatives over the comms, Tony looped back around to where Thor was engaged in a shouting and hammer match with Amora. It sounded a little like a very one sided lovers’ spat. 

“That is one nasty ex!” Hawkey said, from his perch on a pretzel cart.

“Nay!” Thor bellowed, throwing his hammer at the same time Steve threw his shield. “I bear no love for Enchantress and her evil ways!”

“That’s gotta sting.” Tony said over the coms, and socked Enchantress with a repulsor blast while Wasp flew down with her Wasp’s sting to deliver the finishing blow.

A new crew of people showed up to cart Amora and Executioner away. They wore fitted jumpsuits with vaguely patriotic symbols all over them. SHIELD was, as Widow informed him, where their superpowered villains went, or rather, a facility run by SHIELD. Local authorities did not have the kind of technology or manpower necessary to keep the Avengers’ more dangerous adversaries contained. Something that became only too apparent when a headline on a discarded newspaper caught Steve’s eye as they were leaving Central Park.

Zemo had escaped prison. Steve picked up the paper with shaking hands. The headline seemed to taunt him, the bold black letters made his gut churn. He should have killed him when he had the chance. He shouldn’t have shown mercy, and now that maniac, that killer was out free, enjoying his life. The paper ripped in half between his hands as the drop hit him suddenly.

“Cap,” Iron Man said, walking over with his smooth mechanical steps. Steve could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears.

“Did you see this?” Steve said, surprised by the sound of his own voice, the roughness of it.

“Oh shit, Steve, we were going to tell you about that, but then there was the alert,” He trailed off, then stepped closer opening his arms, “hey, let me fly you back to the mansion, we’ll talk there.” 

Steve didn’t say anything, stepping up onto the jet boots and leaning against the armor. The flight back was quiet, but his mind was racing. His body felt both strung tight and as if he were weighed down by the ice the Avengers found him in. He felt nauseated, sick to his soul. God he was tired. He wanted to rest, he wanted to _scream._ Instead, when they arrived back at the mansion, he made to walk down towards the training room, only to be stopped by Tony.

“Steve,” Tony said, the armor was sliding away from him, the flightsuit peeled away as well. He must have just woken up when the call came, because he was just in a pair of silk pajamas. “Honey, are you okay?” Said so softly, as if he was afraid Steve would shatter on the spot. Tony reached out and laid his warm ungloved hand over Steve’s clammy shaking one.

“Oh,” Steve got out tremulously, “Tony,” his name came out choked. He stumbled, and Tony caught him. He was so warm. So warm, Tony was warm, and touching his face, his palms against his cheeks, helping him take the cowl off. “Holy Hannah,” He said, as the drop drained out of him like poison sucked from a wound. He felt like he’d been hit in the face by the world’s best cocktail of pain medication and endorphins. He knew he’d been in pain before, but he couldn’t remember it, everything went warm and hazy, and a little sideways. 

“Yeah babe, that’s right, I’ve got you.” Tony whispered, helping Steve take his own tactical gloves off, because his fingers were too slow and stupid to do it alone. “You needed this huh, I thought so, I’ve noticed, but you never asked.” He was petting Steve’s hair, and Steve sobbed, tucked his face against Tony’s neck, pressed his cheek there against warm skin that smelled like vanilla, he tasted Tony’s scent too, this close it was like drinking a sip of hot spiced tea and the crunch of a sugar cube between his back teeth. The way he’d had tea in a tiny Turkish cafe outside London during one of his few periods of downtime in the war.

“God,” He panted, Tony was stroking his face, he reached down though, wrapped Steve’s arms around himself, and let Steve get his hands beneath the back of his loose silk pajama shirt. “You’re, you’re an omega?” He wrapped his arms more tightly around Tony, startling when his back hit the wall. He was holding Tony up against himself unaware he’d moved them both, that he’d bodily picked Tony up. He wanted to feel something about that, but the rush was gone, the drop was gone, all he felt was peace, as if he were floating in a pool with his eyes closed and his ears submerged. Tony’s chest rumbled against his though, and he opened his eyes, leaning back at last to take in Tony’s expression. His eyes were wide, shocked, the blue almost eclipsed by the black of his pupils.

“I thought you knew, I,” He brushed sweaty strands of Steve’s hair back from his face, “everyone knows, I just thought you didn’t want me touching you, the rest of the team asks and-” He looked distressed suddenly, he held Steve’s face in his hands, “I thought you were getting what you needed some other way-Steve you’ve been dealing with this alone, how long, how long have you been feeling like this?” He sounded almost frantic, Steve couldn’t imagine why. 

Steve blinked, he was starting to feel sleepy, the good kind of tired, where the thought of a warm comfortable thing to lay down on sounded like the best thing in the world. Tony was an omega, his gorgeous, amazing teammate and secret crush was an omega. “I don’t know,” He half slurred out, “since the forties, never had an omega touch me, anyway.” That came out fully slurred. Tony swore under his breath.

“Okay, okay honey, you’re a mess. I’m going to get you to bed and stop asking questions.” He said, moving to pull away. Steve held him fast for a moment, but then his efforts registered to Steve and he let go as quickly as the misfiring neurons in his brain would allow.

“You’re coming to bed with me?” He said, elated by this possibility, unable to think of why that might be incorrect.

“Baby, I am not even going to answer that.” Tony took his hand, leading him down the hall until they reached his room, with Steve trailing after him on autopilot. He got Steve into the bed with surprising efficiency, helping to strip his boots and mail shirt off, but declining anything else. “Not that I won’t respect you in the morning, but sugar, you’re not in your right mind.” He said, pulling the covers up just under Steve’s chin. 

“M’hot.” He grumbled, kicking the blankets off. Tony stared down at him for a moment, his fingers twitched, he looked a little pink in the face. 

“Ave Maria, gratia plena,” He said under his breath. He closed his eyes, swallowed, and then sat on the bed beside Steve. “Close your eyes Steve.” It was an easy request to follow, his eyes already felt heavy, his body felt tired, as if he’d been running without respite for years and finally gotten to rest. “Thank you.” Tony murmured, slipping a hand into Steve’s hair. 

“Mmm.” It wasn’t really a word, just sounds, all he could manage. He turned into Tony’s touches. His hands felt so warm, his fingertips like little points of light filling him with a lazy contentment he had never experienced. Steve let out a long exhalation, and finally let himself sink into a deep dreamless sleep.


	4. Begin Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve sticks his foot in his mouth, sets a self determined mission for himself, and gets some of his past back. 
> 
> Warnings for: Steve's continuing battle with depression, canonical character death (but no one we like), awkwardness and some fantasizing about a certain Tony Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more a million thanks to blossomsinthemist for being the best! All my loves <3
> 
> Parts of the dialogue in this chapter are taken from Avengers 15 from the 60s-be warned for some good old 60s bullshit if you go read the comic however.
> 
> As always comments and kudos are tremendously encouraging and give me something to smile about. If you'd like to follow my tumblr, it's [Here](https://ilunabarrean.tumblr.com)

* * *

Steve woke up in a state of confusion. His body was warm, languid, as if every pain and stress accumulated over the years was no more. For the first time since waking up, the covers were kicked down to the end of the bed. He wasn’t cold, he was warm in fact, his water bottle pillow was across the bed instead of clutched tightly in his arms. Briefly he couldn’t remember how it was he came to be in his room, and then it all came rushing back. The newspaper, the horrible drop that followed it, and, Steve sucked in a deep breath. Tony was an omega, Tony had touched him, held him, been so sweet and generous and without judgement while Steve did his best impersonation of a walking disaster. Even going so far as to stay with Steve until he fell asleep.

Steve sat up, putting his face in his hands. The first omega to ever touch him, and Steve passed out on him. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Tony either, touching him. There was a degree of emotional transference, energy transference when an omega touched another person skin to skin. He hoped Tony was feeling alright, that he wasn’t holed up in his lab feeling horrible.

That thought set him in motion. He took a shower, realizing half way through shampooing his hair that he was absolutely ravenous. He ignored that though, making a beeline for Tony’s lab. If he was in the mansion, it was always a good first place to look.

Tony was there alright. He was in a welding apron, standing in one of the manufacturing bays, dancing and building a brand new armor, it looked like. Steve stared at him through the blast rated glass. The whole lab was filled with brand new projects, Tony had been very busy. Steve shored up his bravery and knocked on the window.

Tony’s head whipped towards the blast doors immediately, and Steve saw him say something to the ceiling. A moment later the doors to the lab opened, and Tony yelled for him to come in. Upon seeing Tony seemed alright, Steve felt more than a little awkward barging in on him like this. What was he even planning to say to him? Man with a plan indeed, he thought glumly, but still walked into the lab. The music lowered immediately, and Tony waved at him with his plasma torch. Upon Steve approaching more closely, he doused the flame, and pushed his goggles up, looking like nothing more than the world’s most handsome mad inventor.

“Hi, Steve,” he said, a broad smile making his face even more handsome, “you were asleep twenty hours, how are you feeling?” Twenty hours? That was an astonishingly long time for anyone to sleep, much less with the serum in his veins. Steve hoped he hadn’t missed any Avengers alerts. Thor was the chairman that month, hopefully he wouldn’t get suspended.

“You’re an omega,” he blurted out, “this whole time I thought you were an alpha,”

Tony was staring at him, he very carefully set the plasma torch down, stripped off his welding gear, and walked over to the ultra modern seating area on the side of the lab with no projects strewn about. “Come sit with me,” he said, “and you can tell me why you thought that.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.” Well now he felt like a heel. He still went and sat down on the couch near Tony, as close as he dared.

“Steve, babe, I’m not offended. I just thought it was kind of obvious, did you not see my Rolling Stone cover online? It was quite the pearl clutcher.” Tony was smiling, he didn’t look angry at least. That was good. He had no idea what that Rolling Stone business was about, but he made a mental note to search for it on his tablet.

“I can usually smell it,” Steve said, feeling awkward and foolish even as the words left his mouth, “but I couldn’t with you. You’ve been smelling a little different though recently.” He hurriedly made an addendum to that when Tony’s eyebrows quirked upwards, “you smell good though, really good, nice, sweet.” Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

“Oh,” Tony said, “I was taking suppressants, but I had to stop taking them recently.” That made a certain kind of sense. He supposed an eligible omega like Tony was inundated by countless suitors. Maybe the anklet was from one, an overture, a request. One Tony saw fit to go off the medication for. It happened a lot in his time too, it was normal, coming off suppressants when a person was ready for a family. He tried not to feel sad about that, that he might’ve lost his chance before he ever even knew there was one, if there had ever in fact been one. Unless Tony wanted to be part of a triad-and God he was getting way ahead of himself.

Steve nodded, sitting up straighter, and giving Tony an encouraging smile. “Oh, you’re seeing someone, trying to get in the family way, congratulations.” He tried to sound happy about it for Tony, he thought he managed it. He _was_ happy for him, if Tony found someone good for him, someone kind, a partner he could count on, a good protector, someone who would treat him with the affection and care a person like him deserved. It wasn’t that he thought Tony couldn’t take care of himself, he was Iron Man, a real brainiac, a hero, but heroing could be very lonely, Steve knew that better than anyone. He hoped Tony’s hypothetical partner had a good solid glare they could level at annoying schmucks at parties, he hoped they’d be as good to him as Steve wanted to be, if he were brave enough to make his feelings known.

“Oh, oh God no.” Tony laughed, blessedly oblivious to Steve’s spiraling thoughts, he thunked his head back on the couch, then stood up to walk over to a set of counters and cabinets set into the wall. He rifled around briefly, then returned with a pizza box that had been resting on a warmer in one hand, and a bottle of water in his other. He passed the pizza over to Steve, then sat back down. He took a long sip of his water, then turned to face Steve again, tucking his legs up under himself on the couch. “No Steve, um, that’s not why. I can’t um.” He cleared his throat, took another sip of his water, “You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen babe, but I can’t have kids, long story, but, that's not why I stopped taking them.”

“So you’re not stepping out with anyone then?” Steve said, opening the pizza box, his stomach rumbled, and then his own question to Tony registered, “Sorry, sorry, that’s none of my business.”

Tony blinked over at him, his eyes were wide, “I,” his hand shook, he set the water bottle down on the coffee table, an elegant glass and metal thing that looked a little like a spaceship, “I am very available, Steve, heinously single even-I stopped taking them because they were interacting with other medications I take.”

Other medications, Steve paused half way through stuffing an entire pizza slice into his mouth. He swallowed with some effort. “Are you alright, are you sick?” He asked, feeling that telltale urge to protect surfacing with a vengeance.

“Steve, you can’t fight comorbid conditions, no matter how good of an alpha you are.” Tony said, laughing. He sounded fond, warm. “I’m not sick, honey, you’re such a sweetheart. I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

Steve frowned. “Don’t tell me what to worry about, mister. I can worry if I like.”

“Oh God, Steve,” Tony groaned in exasperation, “you’re like a dog with a bone, I swear.”

“Call me Fido.” He said seriously. Tony frowned, then sat forward, leaning closer to Steve, blue eyes searching.

“I’m not the one who needs worrying about as it is.” He reached out, clearly telegraphing his intentions, and laid his hand on Steve’s knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m worried about you, Cap,”

“I’m sorry.” He said, sitting up straight on the couch, trying to make himself look strong, like the kind of alpha Tony didn’t have to worry about. “It won’t happen again. I think I’ll be fine now.”

“Steve, that was not at all what I meant.” Tony was looking over at him, a soft, gentle look that spoke of understanding. Steve firmed his jaw, as amazing as Tony’s touch had felt, he couldn’t have that. Not all the time, not again. Sure Tony seemed like he was feeling fine now, but Steve was out of commission for twenty hours. There was no telling how awful he might’ve felt while Steve was doing his best Rip Van Winkle impression.

“I’m fine.” He reasserted.

“Yeah sure, _fine_ was really what I felt from you.” Tony said, a deep frown turning the corners of his lips downwards. He sighed, taking a deep breath. “Look, I know me touching you wasn’t really something you necessarily wanted, but you can’t keep going like this.” He said, scooting back from Steve, putting distance between them. Steve opened his mouth to speak, to tell Tony to come back, but Tony kept talking. “I can hook you up with the VA, there are omegas you can go see there, or I can find you a nice omega therapist...”

“No, I’m not going to the VA, or anywhere else.” Steve felt bad for how that made Tony’s face twist with worry, but he carried on. “Look, Tony, it’s hard enough out there for vets trying to get an appointment at the VA,” He had been reading about it in fact, vets waiting for months for appointments, overloaded hospital systems unable to handle the sheer number of patients they needed to see, the backlogs stretching into the thousands.

“I can get you one.” Tony said, already wiggling his phone out of his pocket.

“Tony I don’t want an appointment at the VA.” It came out sharper than intended. Tony put his phone down, his eyes were wide, upset. God he was really acting like the back end of a donkey, wasn’t he. “If they fit me in, that’s another vet’s spot I’m taking.” He said quietly. “Who knows how long it’d be before that vet got another appointment. There’s alphas and betas out there needing help way more than Captain America.”

“From where I’m sitting, there’s no one more deserving of help than you, Cap.” He was holding the phone again, but he tucked it back in his pocket. He still looked upset.

“That’s because you’re sweet, and generous.” It was true too, he’d never met someone like Tony. Someone so dedicated to making sure everyone around them was taken care of. Even the little things they might not have thought of themselves. Like the heated floors in Steve’s room, or the special groceries for each Avenger delivered every week. He knew omegas were said to want to provide comfort and a sense of peace, but Tony really went above and beyond.

“Oh sure.” Tony said, his lips twisted downwards again. He looked even more displeased than before if that was possible. “So much so I didn’t even realize you’ve been apparently on edge since the forties.”

“C’mon smart guy, I fail to see how that’s got anything to do with you.” How Tony arrived there, Steve had no idea, but he wasn’t going to let Tony continue thinking his touch was unwelcome, or that he was upset about it. Not for whatever reason he’d cooked up in that genius brain of his. He shifted forwards, closer to Tony than even before, when Tony first sat down. Tony just watched him as if he didn’t quite know what to make of Steve coming closer. Steve didn’t say anything, just scooted so his knee brushed Tony’s while he worked on finishing the pizza as quickly as was polite. He felt Tony’s eyes on him, but he didn’t speak until Steve looked over at him and smiled while he chewed.

“You said no omega ever touched you. What did you do during the war?” Tony asked, hesitantly, after Steve finished the slice he had been determinedly mowing through.

“I just dealt with it.” Steve shrugged, other alphas dealt with it fine, he didn’t see what was so special about that, why he should be any different.

“ **What?** Steve, that’s not,” Tony slid closer, his hands fluttered around, and finally rested on Steve’s shoulders, warm through his shirt. “Steve, you’re supposed to be brought down, supposed to have reprieve. No one is meant to stay in a rush, drop cycle indefinitely. Even alphas who aren’t supersoldiers, and I can only imagine what the serum is doing to you, oh my God, Steve.” He looked horrified, his eyes so wide and blue.

“Never been a problem before, seen other alphas deal just fine.” Steve said mulishly.

“Steve, listen to me okay,” Tony squeezed his shoulders, leaned in close, “I want you to come to me, if you need it, even if you don’t need it, if you’re just kind of having a crap day. Come to me before it gets so bad you look like you’re dead on your feet. Please.”

As always, Tony’s generosity left him speechless. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just agreed. He wouldn’t do it again though, he resolved to himself with determination. During the war he’d survived, he wasn’t about to start imposing on Tony regularly just because he couldn’t take it. He would stretch the wonderful light feeling within himself for as long as he possibly could. After that, well, there were always his water bottles and the blankets.

Still, when he looked back at Tony waving at him through the glass as he left the lab in search of more food from the kitchen, he couldn’t help but think about how amazing his touch felt.

* * *

The first thing he did after eating and going for a jog, he was not proud of. He went to his room, unlocked his tablet, and searched for Tony’s Rolling Stone cover.

 _Oh._ He thought, as he stared at the image on the screen faintly. _Wow_. It was a picture of Tony. he was younger by a few years. He was also almost naked, except for a pair of ripped steady gloves, and some scanty underwear, giving the camera the kind of look that reached in and grabbed a fella by the ears. He posed provocatively on a bed, on his back, with an arch to his spine, hands above his head and jewels all over his body, including a broken diamond choker, still half on, with a trail of glittering gems studding his skin. Courting gifts surrounded him, boxes of bon bons, and clover bangles from Van Cleef and Arpels that probably cost a fortune each. There was an article too, not that Steve was paying it all that much attention; Tony Stark, on Confessions, Tiberius Stone, and Living on the Bleeding Edge of Technology.

Back in the war he remembered seeing eight pagers with omegas posed a little like that in them, only a hell of a lot more naked, wet between the legs, wearing wedded gloves, like they were waiting just for whoever was looking at them. Steve dropped the tablet on the bed and groaned. He shouldn’t have looked, he shouldn’t have. All of his fantasies were predicated on the knowledge that Tony was an alpha, but Tony wasn’t an alpha, he was an omega. Steve’s whole body felt hot, too hot, he’d spent so long feeling cold and shaky that it felt almost foreign.

He wondered what Tony would be like, if he’d be sweet. Steve swallowed thickly. Tony was always so sweet to him, so kind. He probably tasted sweet too, the way he smelled. Steve nearly ripped his pants off in the rush to get them off. He shouldn’t have been thinking of Tony posed like the art of the omegas in the eight pagers. It was disrespectful to Tony, but that genie had been let out of the bottle long ago. He wondered if Tony liked to feel a mouth on him, if he’d let Steve eat him out until his slick was everywhere, until it ran down Steve’s lips, over his chin. Steve would do it, get Tony so wet for him, get his legs shaking and his hole quivering around his tongue, God. He would want to show Tony he could make it good, and if Tony allowed it, if he wanted it, maybe he’d let Steve fuck him.

“Oh, oh, God,” The words punched out of him almost painfully. He was so hard, his cock slapping wetly against his abdomen when he let it go to pull at his own hair with just the thought of that, of Tony letting him fuck him. He could, he could get Tony on his stomach, pull his hips up, hold him like that, and-Tony was an omega, Steve wouldn’t have to keep a hand on himself, not if Tony urged him on, if he wanted it, and in his fantasy Tony sure did. Steve’s moan was shockingly loud in the room as he got his hand back around his cock. Both hands now, holding himself almost too tightly, the way Tony’s body might at first, but Tony would be able to-to, if tony wanted it, he could take a knot. Steve’s whole body arched with that thought, and he had to roll over, bury his face in the blankets, and grind into the mattress.

Why had he thought that? Steve had never let himself even contemplate knotting one of his partners, never thought he would be in a position where the possibility was even remotely possible. God, knotting was the most intimate thing possible, aside from bonding. Their thoughts would be open to each other, their emotions and feelings. Tony would never want that with him, would he? Steve gasped, rocking into the bed, the cotton of the covers almost too rough against his cock, but he didn’t care. It was too late, his thoughts were already there with no way to tear them away from that unrealizable fantasy. He had no frame of reference for how it would feel, but God how it would look afterwards. The way it was lovingly rendered in the eight pagers. Sated omegas with their legs spread, loose and dripping, with an alpha curled around them, protecting them at their most vulnerable. Steve came so hard he saw stars.

He laid there panting against the covers for longer than he kept track of. He’d drooled a little onto the sheets, his cheek was wet, but he couldn’t have cared less.

* * *

An hour later, freshly showered and scrubbed clean, he was furtively putting his sheets in the wash when Natasha walked into the room. She had a cup of tea in her hand. Her nostrils flared slightly. She took a sip of her tea, eyeing him over the rim. He tried not to look like a man who’d been guiltily masturbating over pictures of his friend and teammate. He wasn’t sure if he was entirely successful.

“So,” She said, “Tony told me you didn’t know, so, in the interests of full disclosure, I’m an omega too.” She said it with such matter of factness, but she still looked a little cautious. He wondered if Tony’d told her how Steve collapsed on him like a giant mess. He hoped not. That hardly served as a glowing endorsement of his worthiness as an Avenger, he thought.

“I kind of thought that might be the case, but I didn’t want to pry.” He turned, offered her a salute. “It’s an honor to be on the team with you, I think you should know.”

Natasha stared at him for a long moment wherein Steve wondered if he’d gone and stuck his foot in it again. “Иисус, he was right, that is unfair.” She said almost to herself, before setting her mug on the washer to walk closer. “I have come to also offer help, if you need it. Tony said you were...concerned. About it being some great imposition.”

“You would do that?” He asked quietly. He had never seen Natasha with her gloves off, never seen her touch anyone on the team without them.

“There is still a lot I’m learning to let go of, Steve, but we’re a team.” She smiled, just a small upward curve of her lips, private and delicate. “I had to learn it too,” She looked down, her lovely green eyes fixing on some point on the floor, “that I’m not alone.”

“You’re not alone,” He said, daring to reach out and clasp her shoulder, “we’re Avengers, we’re a team, I got your back, Widow.” He meant it too. Sure, he missed the forties something terrible, but he couldn’t go back, and he was surprised to find he didn’t want to, not anymore. The team needed him here, they cared about each other, about him, they wanted him to find a home among them, and he wanted that too.

“Thank you, and, I feel I have to say, Tony is correct,” She shot him a little wink, “that is a sentence of at least ten years in the Dakotas.”

“Natasha,” he said, laughing. Natasha only smiled in response, reaching up with one of her gloved hands and patting his cheek, before sweeping up her mug and walking towards the door.

“By the way,” she said, her head just poking in the doorway, her smile left Steve feeling a little exposed, “if you need new sheets, the main linen closet is right across the entrance to this room.”

Steve felt himself go red nearly to his toes.

He went and found the closet though, feeling more than a little furtive about it. He met no one else in the hallway however, carrying his new sheets back to his room, feeling a bit like he was on an espionage mission. Maybe it was silly, he was sure none of the others would judge him, or even make the connection as to why he was walking around in the middle of the day holding new sheets, but it was easier to not say anything embarrassing when there was no one around to talk to him.

After replacing his sheets, he finally dared to pick up the tablet again. It was still on Tony’s picture, and he hastily scrolled down into the accompanying article. Maybe he shouldn’t have read it, this was something from Tony’s past, but Tony himself had spoken about it, so he obviously wasn’t trying to hide it.

The article was full of pictures of Tony, a young Tony with a man labeled as his father, being paraded around society events. He didn’t look happy in those photos at all, just small and lonely, and far too young to be holding champagne glasses. There were photos from later, Tony at an inventions expo, Tony giving speeches and showing off incredible technology. Red carpet events and parties filled the pages with Tony in his press smile with a gorgeous date on each arm. There were yet more pictures as well, pictures of him on the arm of a tall muscular blond, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and the same steady gloves and diamond choker he wore in the cover photo around his neck. More pictures followed of the pair at various functions, with Tony looking increasingly drunk and cornered. Sure he was smiling, but Steve had become a connoisseur of sorts of Tony’s smiles. These were anything but happy, regardless of how his partner seemed to be showing him around like a trophy with his own slick white shark’s grin. Steve felt his skin crawl just looking at the guy. What he read about the big palooka didn’t really help matters either:

> When asked about recent accusations of corporate espionage against Tiberius Stone, Mr. Stark only had kind words about his former partner, explaining they were not compatible and split amicably, over difficulties not related to the accusations of espionage. When pressed, Mr. Stark merely stated ‘I don’t kiss and tell.’ Sources close to the Stark scion... (Story continues p.50)

The rest of the article went on to detail a messy breakup, a broken bond before it had even been initiated, and more intrusive questions that Tony batted away with the seeming ease of long experience. Links on the sidebar led to other articles about Tony, pictures of him young and at parties with people draped all over him. In those he looked considerably happier at least, especially the one with him up on a speaker singing into a microphone while wearing some tiny sparkly shorts. In another he looked even worse, still younger than in his Rolling Stone piece, with a beautiful woman named Sunset Bain all but coiled around him, her fingers digging into his neck to point Tony’s face towards the camera’s flash. The whole tableau set Steve’s teeth on edge, and he clicked away from it before he did something reckless like calling Tony up and asking him about it all. That article led to more recent ones, articles about his work with the Avengers, his scientific contributions, of which there were many, and finally one that made his heart seize in his chest. Tony had been kidnapped, and returned covered in a crude version of the Iron Man armor with a feverish sort of purpose. He saved himself and then turned his attention to saving others, to creating things to keep others safe. He lost his flesh and blood heart and had become the first recipient of a fully contained artificial heart. Oh. Steve thought, staring down at the tablet. The scar, that’s what it was from. He suddenly felt he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to see. He was prying, being incredibly disrespectful and nosy. Tony hadn’t wanted him to know, he’d clammed up when Steve noticed the scar. But, Steve worried too, he hoped Tony was alright, that his heart was alright.

The thought of Tony throwing himself around the field with no consideration for his own safety was suddenly more urgent and terrifying. His heart, Steve had to keep him safe, he had to- Steve cut his own thoughts off before he could go any further with that. Tony was his own man, strong, Invincible Iron Man the press called him, his partner on the field, his heart being artificial, all of that, it only made him stronger, more of a hero. He thought of how he would’ve felt, if someone would have told him he couldn’t fight, that he was too sick. Well, he already knew how that went. Most fellas would have called it quits after losing their ticker, but Tony fought on, and Steve would honor it, the way he wanted people to honor it when he’d been a skinny asthmatic with a heart condition of his own who’d joined the army. God what a guy, Steve stared down at the article feeling even more stupidly smitten than he ever thought possible.

This was bad. If Tony touched him, surely he’d know. He must have felt it, maybe that was why he was so intent on Steve getting that VA appointment. Sure he seemed to like Steve, respect him, and he was always kind, sweet, generous as the day was long. That didn’t mean he felt the same. Still, his gift had been accepted. Steve pushed that thought away, it didn’t count. Tony had no way of knowing that was a courting gift. He’d looked so sweet though, holding them against his body, soft around the eyes and mouth, like he would have welcomed Steve’s touch. Steve closed his eyes, willing his body to calm down. He didn’t need to change his sheets twice in one day.

With that thought, he stood up to change into some of the clothing he’d bought to work out in. Clint recommended the shorts, he didn’t understand why Jan had elbowed him in the side about it, they seemed just fine. Steve frowned, pulling them on, and topping them with one of Natasha’s picks, a pale blue shirt with the words American Made across the chest, and some little blue and white stars. It had made her smile, so he figured it was a good purchase. Some of those fancy new sneakers he’d seen at the athletic store were next. He contemplated strapping his shield to his back, but that seemed a little excessive, even for him.

Outside the weather was warm and pleasant. It was nice to just feel normal, to feel his body at rest, no rush or drop clouding his awareness. He set off from in front of the mansion at a nice clip, letting the repetitiveness of his steps calm him even further. He could feel eyes on him, but no one bothered him, there was sure a lot of honking though, he didn’t know what that was about, probably the red lights not changing quickly enough.

After jogging for two hours, he stopped by a vendor and picked up a pretzel and a hot dog, sitting on a bench to enjoy his spoils. A few giggling betas holding their phones waved at him, and he waved back, making sure to give them a friendly smile. Everyone seemed friendly too, while he jogged back to the mansion, stepping out of his way, and giving him plenty of room.

Back at the mansion, he was just sitting on his bed untying his shoelaces when a knock sounded at his door.

“Come in, door’s unlocked.” He called, looking up when the door swung open to reveal Tony in one of his swanky suits, looking over caffeinated and bright eyed.

“Steve, hey, thought I’d let you know I’m having some stuff delivered to you, there was a warehouse, and,” he trailed off, as Steve stood to put his shoes in the shoe rack by his bed, “what,” he said. When Steve looked up, he had a hand splayed over his heart. His eyes were wide.

“A warehouse?” Steve prompted. Tony’s eyes went even more round, and then he shook his head, coming fully into the room.

“Steve were you out jogging in that?” He sounded a little breathless. Steve looked down at himself, he wondered if he’d gotten pretzel cheese on himself somehow and not noticed, but everything still looked clean and unstained.

“Yeah, whassa matter with it?” he asked, plucking at the material of the shirt. He supposed he was a little sweaty.

“Steve, Steven, you mean to tell me you were out there in the wild,” he waved his hand around, he was looking red in the face, “corrupting the public with lust for your American icon body?” He sounded just a little hysterical.

“Aw Tony,” he laughed, resting his hands on his hips, “don’t start again with that fella.”

“It’s me, I am a public, and I will have you know, I am feeling extremely corrupt, someone delete my cache and reboot me.” The last part of that statement hadn’t made a lick of sense, but the first part made Steve flush hot. Tony was always saying stuff like that, he only wished he meant it. He didn’t know what Tony was going on about anyway, it was just shorts and a shirt.

“Natasha, Jan, and Clint helped me pick it, what’s the big idea? You trying to make me feel self conscious, Stark?” He said, smiling wide.

Tony groaned, and continued on with an air of grand drama, “Of course, of course they did, they live to torment me, I swear, my own personal demons.”

“Your mouth says demons but I saw all that new gear you made ‘em, you big softie.” It was true too, there was no expense Tony would spare, neither with his time or his money, or just anything, when it came to the team. He got the feeling part of why Tony worked so hard was to make sure the Avengers never wanted for anything.

“Yeah, yeah, well don’t tell them that, my reputation as a heartless jerk is very important to me.” Tony said seriously, but his expression was fond.

“Tony, c’mon, you’re not heartless.” He came closer, and after some mental deliberation, rested his hands on Tony’s shoulders. “You can’t fool me, smart guy, I know you’ve got a big heart beating away in there.” He thought of Tony’s heart, destroyed and then replaced, his strength, his courage. No, he didn’t think heartless described Tony Stark at all.

“You’d get a lot of blowback on that assertion, big guy.” He reached up, taking Steve’s hands in his and giving them a squeeze. He had a new pair of gloves on, a pretty mesh material that just barely hinted at the skin beneath. “That’s not why I came in here anyway, um.” He took a deep breath, looking at Steve, he was still a little pink in the face. “The warehouse, right.”

Steve nodded, waiting for him to continue. “Yeah, what’s in the warehouse, more fancy planes?”

“Not this time, it’s well. Things that belonged to you. I figured out years ago that the army had a bunch of your stuff locked away, and so I um,” he faltered, before soldiering on, “I bought it, before we found you. Some of it’s in museums, but I kept some of the things that seemed more personal, letters, and,” he trailed off, upon noting Steve was staring at him. The warehouse, his things, he thought them lost forever, figured the army would have tossed it all in the trash after he was declared dead.

“What, Tony, how?” It was a lot to take in, the thought of getting some of his past back. He stumbled over to sit on his bed, and Tony followed, sitting next to him.

“I promise, I didn’t read any of the letters, but I didn’t want them out there in some museum, those were your private thoughts.” Tony scooted closer, pressed his leg against Steve’s, he wasn’t meeting Steve’s eyes, but he did put an arm around him and press close, the way he had in the hotel back in Foxborough. He squeezed a little more tightly when Steve leaned into him. “Some of the more delicate stuff I had sealed in museum glass so um. Don’t be alarmed when it gets here.”

“You’re having it delivered?” He said, and almost didn’t believe it was his own voice, choked with emotion as it was. Tony made a sound under his breath, his hand sliding from around Steve’s shoulder to stroke comfortingly at the back of his neck. Steve shivered with that touch, so warm and relaxing even through the material of the gloves. It wasn't a gesture usually used on alphas at all, but it felt good, grounding. He wondered if it was something Tony liked, being touched like that, he'd heard about the effect it had on omegas, being stroked there, but no one had ever done it to him. 

“I thought well, it would be easier to bring it all to you, there’s one thing I um, I had, in a vault because it seemed really important, and I want to, no I need to give it back to you.” Tony stood then, taking all his warmth with him, and walking over to the door. He called to Jarvis down the hall, disappearing for a moment, and returning with a big square of glass, with a yellowed canvas held within it. “She’s beautiful, by the way.” He said quietly, passing the glass into Steve’s shaking hands.

His ma’, Sarah Rogers looked back at him, the way she had so many years ago. Her white nurse’s dress wasn’t the bright white it once had been, but it was still her, held suspended in glass, as safe as she could be. He couldn’t speak, the emotion rose in his throat, his eyes felt hot, tears slipped down his face to wet his cheeks. He’d given everything from his old life up for lost, but here was Tony handing a piece back to him without him even having to ask. Slowly he placed the painting down on the bed, and then reached out to take Tony’s hands in his, Tony was trembling, his eyes wide and incredibly blue, he looked a little pale. Steve pulled him to sit on the bed beside him, and he went without complaint.

His mouth worked, no sound came out for a moment, and then he cleared his throat and spoke. “Steve honey, say something? I’m sorry, I should have asked first, I get carried away, too much, I always do too much. I should have run it by you first, God that’s so insensitive, I’m, I-I made Captain America cry, sick and wrong and-”

Steve cut him off before he could mount into a full panic, “No, no, Tony, it’s not too much, it’s good,” he gasped out, turning on the bed to grab Tony's shoulders. He wanted to pull him close, kiss him, show him how much it meant to him, but Tony didn’t feel that way about him, and that was okay too. Tony clearly cared about him, and he cared for Tony too, He had given him so much. A home, a team, his incredible friendship, and now a part of his past he never thought he would get back. There was no way he could look at all that and think it was not enough. It had to be enough. He pulled him close, and Tony sighed, his arms wrapping around Steve tightly as he pillowed his cheek on Steve’s shoulder. “It’s good, it’s,” he dared to raise his hand, cup it over the back of Tony’s neck, where the collar of his shirt met the soft curling edges of his hair, “thank you, thank you Tony.” Against him, Tony gave a full body shiver, and Steve heard his breathing go ragged.

“You’re sure?” He whispered, and Steve squeezed Tony more tightly against himself. Tony was such a study in contradictions. Steve wondered how it could be sometimes, that Tony could stand in front of a million cameras and smile like a shark, and then do something like this and think Steve could be angry at him for it.

He wanted to tell him that, but he was aware that would sound too much like what he really wanted to say; I think I’m falling in love with you. “Hey, didn’t you hear? I’m a lousy liar.” He said instead.

“Captain America cannot tell a lie, I think I saw a poster like that somewhere.” Tony’s voice sounded a little wobbly, but he sat back, and Steve let him put a small amount of distance between the two of them. No matter how much he wanted to keep Tony right where he’d been. Holding Tony like he had been, he realized it was an incredibly intimate way to go about it, with his hand on his neck and all, the way he'd been squeezing, even if it was gentle, but Tony had let him. Steve felt something hopeful and tenuous bloom within himself, even as he doggedly resolved to ignore it.

“Don’t believe all the propaganda about me.” He smiled, hoping it wasn’t as shaky as it felt.

“All the good stuff is um, it’s been true so far, I have to say. Better even.” Tony picked at his gloves, and then looked up. “You’re really sure that it’s alright?”

“Yes, Tony, more than, having so much back, It’ll mean a lot to me, make the place seem like home, ya know.” Home, a place he could belong. It would feel all the more real once the things from his past arrived. The mansion was more than he ever could have dreamed of, but with this, it felt like the last piece of the puzzle slotting into place.

“You look like her.” Tony said quietly, a small smile on his face that spoke of some bittersweet emotion. He wondered what Tony’s ma’ had been like. “Can you tell me about her?” Tony asked, hushed and hesitant, but he scooted close once more while Steve picked up the glass encased painting.

“Well sure, she’d tell me off for talking her up, but she’s not here for her head to get too big, so I can say what I please.” He said, smiling when that startled a laugh out of Tony. “The first thing you need to know about Sarah Rogers is that she took no lip from anyone, and she was the best alpha I’ve ever met,” He touched his fingers on the glass over her familiar face. It wasn’t as hard to talk about her as it once was, and he would’ve liked to have thought she would be proud, seeing the man he’d become.

He lost track of how long he spoke about Sarah, but Tony listened raptly anyway, seemingly content to just let Steve ramble for however long he wanted. When he had to leave to take a call from one of the scientists in the technology division, Steve set about placing Sarah’s painting in the easel in the corner of his room. He would find a better place to hang it, but for now it was the best place for it.

His other belongings arrived just a few hours later, boxes of letters, art supplies not seen since he packed them away in the forties, and most importantly, a few pictures of his dad encased in the same museum grade glass Sarah’s portrait was in. He sat down on the bed for hours, reading letters and holding back his tears. There were countless letters calling him a hero, many of them dated long past when he’d gone into the ice. There were even a few from Russell, apologizing for all the mess when they were kids, telling him he would be a fine protector for a lucky omega or beta someday. There were letters from the De Rossi’s too, praising him and telling him how much they missed him, along with little cards full of recipes for him to make one day when he found himself a nice partner or partners to settle down with. They knew he couldn’t cook his way out of a wet paper bag, but rut always made him want to provide food regardless of his skill level. Nonna had even sent him a stovetop espresso maker, with a long note in Italian telling him American coffee was nonsense. Steve wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and smiled the best he could with how much his lips were trembling. God if they could see him now in this big fancy mansion.

He spent the following few hours organizing his things. There wasn’t a whole lot, but he got it all sorted and set up to his satisfaction. The room seemed warmer, less empty after he was done. For years during the war, there was no home, and after Sarah passed, even his drafty lower east side apartment felt far too empty. This was his chance, here with Tony, the team, the mansion, he could build a life there, in the present.

* * *

He slept well that night again, but woke some time just before dawn feeling overheated and lonely. His vision in the dark since the serum was fantastic, but it had sharpened, and seemed almost day-bright despite all the lights being off. Every scent around the room was sharper as well. He wondered where the team was, the urge to herd them into one spot where he could make sure they were safe, taken care of, and well fed seemed to be the most pressing thing imaginable. His own scent seemed far stronger to his own nose, strong enough that even someone unenhanced might catch a whiff from across the room. He hadn’t been expecting rut, his alpha cycle so soon, but it was very likely brought on by having close contact with an omega. He’d read about that happening before, and people joked that alphas would often sync to their omega partner’s heats. He wondered if maybe Tony was due for a heat, and-he forcibly tore his mind away from that thought, and stood up to pace around the room.

He still wanted to wake the team up, his instincts warred with his logical mind. He could only imagine the telling off he’d get if he went banging on everyone’s doors because he was in rut and needed all his important people in one room where he could sniff them for injuries and brood like some kind of great bird. Clint would certainly never let him live it down, that was for sure. Steve groaned, going over to look at Sarah’s picture. He bet she would have had some good advice about what to do. He needed to do something, but what? During the war, rut was a boon in many ways, it helped him on missions, made him even stronger and more tireless than with the serum alone. This body wasn’t meant for downtime or rest.

As he thought on it more, something dawned on him. Between the horrible drop after what happened with Amora and Executioner, and everything after, a matter of great importance slipped his mind. Zemo was still out there, running around free and a real and present danger to anyone unlucky enough to encounter him. There was no doubt in Steve’s mind, that the lousy sock faced bastard would turn up again like some kind of nasty fungus. He would put Steve’s team in danger, if he were allowed to plan unopposed until his trap could be sprung. Zemo could always be trusted to be too ambitious for his own good, and too spiteful to leave something alone even when his goose was cooked. He would attack the team again, and that was just unacceptable. He was one of Steve’s villains, and truth be told, he wanted nothing more than to take the rat bastard out himself. _You always stand up_. He thought, looking up at the picture of Sarah.

“Thanks Ma’.” He said, pressing a hand to her portrait before turning away to leave the room.

Of course there was still the matter of actually finding Zemo. The guy was slipperier than a snake, and was not above hiding out in isolated locales. That was in the forties though, in the forties there was no satellite system up above the Earth. During one of their late night insomnia sessions in the library Tony told him about it. The global satellite system high up above, veritable eyes in the sky. He also knew Tony had many satellites of his own, and they were capable of communicating somehow with multiple others. He wasn’t quite sure of the how, but he remembered where the control room was, and he remembered his access codes.

He went to the kitchen to eat and grab snacks first, and then trekked down to set up in the satellite feed room. At first he wasn’t sure what to look for, scrolling aimlessly through coordinates while he tried to come up with a plan.

“Where would I go if I was a good for nothing Nazi with a hood glued to my face?” Steve muttered to himself, eyes fixed on an aerial view of somewhere in the Midwest. Zemo would not deign to be out there, of that much he was certain. He fancied himself nobility, he had grandiose delusions, and an obsession with his own image and power. He was also big on tradition, villainous tradition, he sure liked his lairs, that ruled out a lot of hiding spots at least.

Steve sighed, sitting back in his chair and ripping open a bag of rice cakes as he watched the satellite feeds scroll past. His body was still thrumming as his alpha cycle kicked into full gear, but the search for Zemo gave him a purpose at least, something to turn that energy towards. Zemo would attack his team, and so he had to be stopped at all costs. A man like the Baron would always be dangerous, even behind bars. Steve sat forward in his chair as one of the satellites paused on Alcatraz. Steve paused the feed, zooming in on the island. It was defensible, structurally sound, and would make a great base for any would-be villain. Perhaps not Alcatraz itself, as it had too many visitors and eyes on it, but there were other island prisons around the world, places steeped in horrible histories. The kind of histories that might call to a vile man the likes of Zemo.

He started with Devil’s Island, off the coast of Suriname. He remembered an entire penal colony once took up the island, it was a long shot, and Steve was not surprised to see it still looked abandoned on the images. He kept looking, his focus narrowing in until he lost track of time entirely. Lacking a physical enemy to fight, his senses honed to his task, until the grumbling of his stomach finally tore his attention away from the screens. Looking at the time informed him no less than six hours had elapsed. Steve stood, stretched, and worked his way through three bags of snacks, and then sat down to keep searching. He would eat a real meal later, but he was too keyed in, too focused to leave the room until he had some kind of lead.

That thread finally appeared late into the evening when he typed in the coordinates for an island he and Bucky petitioned to be sent to, but never were. Mamula, as the locals called it, Lastavica as it was named in the top secret dossiers. It was an old fort, which Mussolini and his cronies converted into a concentration camp. Steve ground his teeth together just thinking about it. He, Bucky, and the Invaders would have stormed it in a heartbeat, but the orders never came, and then of course, Steve had been lost to time.

On the screen, the pixilation cleared, and Steve stared, and then scrolled closer. There was activity on the island all right. Crates of suspicious looking materials, racks of weapons, and most tellingly a banner with Zemo’s heraldry draped over the entrance to the fort. The bastard never had been able to resist boasting about his blue blood, and thank goodness for that, he had a target now.

As much as his blood was spoiling for a fight, he still had to plan, and have a few hours of rest at least. Even with rut burning hot in his veins, he knew he had to reign it in. He’d be no help to anyone if he ran off to Mamula half cocked. He considered telling the team, but this was his fight, his score to settle. He couldn’t endanger them. He could hear Bucky calling him a fathead from beyond the grave, but he didn’t have any room to talk. Back in the war, Bucky’d been notorious for the wild risks he took, and Mamula was always somewhere both of them had wanted to be sent to. Bucky would come with him in spirit, even if they were never able to tear down the walls while the war was on, Steve could do something about the piece of trash glorifying the horrors of a past that had made Mamula what it was.

* * *

He waited until the next evening, not trusting himself to be around the team, no matter how much he wanted to be. He was still a terrible liar after all, and he had a sneaking suspicion Natasha would somehow know he was planning something. She was canny like that, and she had a way of asking questions that made a fella want to answer.

For all he joked about Tony’s love of high tech planes, he was pleased to see the quinjet sitting in the aircraft hangar when he snuck down there with his go bag and his tach suit hidden beneath a long trench coat, just in case he got his timing wrong and met another Avenger in the halls while on his way down. He remembered all his access codes of course, though he still half expected to get a call or two when he opened the plane up and stepped inside.

He’d been reading up on how to fly the quinjet, and had done it a few times already. Despite all the bells and whistles, it was surprisingly intuitive to fly, and the onboard A.I. didn’t hurt either. After checking he was go for flight, he engaged stealth capabilities, and got the plane out as quietly and quickly as could be managed. It really was quiet too, the whole craft a marvel of modern engineering. It even had auto-pilot, not that he’d let that take over for him, but if he were too injured to fly back on his own, he was sure it would come in handy. He wasn’t sure he fully trusted an A.I. to fly the plane better than he could. Besides, it was comforting in a way, holding onto the controls, looking down at the clouds through the panoramic cockpit windows.

He felt good, purposeful, working towards an objective. Time flew by up at cruising altitude, the rush of rut honing his focus in on the task at hand, until Mamula came into view in the distance. The sun was just beginning to rise, providing a cover for Steve to angle the plane into, something for the stealth reflector panels to mimic. He went for a landing close to the shore, bringing the quinjet down so that the sound of the landing gear was masked by the crashing of the surf.

Zemo had goons all over the island, but they were clearly not expecting company. He found the first group of them playing cards around a fire. Even in the semi darkness of early dawn, rut and the serum made them all but glow to his eyes. On another day, another time, with different villains he might have made his presence known, made it a fair fight, but this was different. He didn’t owe any respect to the kind of people who would ally themselves with someone like Zemo. Still, he didn’t kill them, standing over their unconscious forms, he was certain the concussions would be deterrent enough. Besides, given the opportunity to raise the alarm, he was certain Zemo might turn tail. For all his bluster and talk of his superiority, the man was a coward at heart.

During rut, in the war he’d ripped guns off of tanks, climbed many a vertical wall. Mamula, even with all of the fortifications, and all of Zemo’s hideously garbed henchmen, didn’t pose much of a challenge. The shield was conspicuous, so he opted for his hands instead, creeping up behind Zemo’s men, and knocking them out with an uppercut to the jaw or a blow to the head. Concussions could certainly be dangerous, but this was playing it nice as far as Steve was concerned. He knew none of these alphas and betas would hesitate to kill him, or bring him before Zemo, so he could get in the killing blow. He’d shown mercy the last time he and Zemo met, but not today. He had every intention of wiping the sorry sock faced bastard off the face of the Earth, before he could cause more harm to civilians and his team.

Up ahead, walls rose up out of the ground, encircling a courtyard, and he picked up voices over the wall, one of which he recognized instantly. It was Zemo’s voice, calling out orders imperiously, Steve wouldn’t be surprised if he’d sat himself atop some kind of palanquin. It seemed like something he would do.

What better place for Zemo to indulge in his disgusting delusions of grandeur than a place like Mamula, where so much suffering and evil had once been allowed to run rampant. Steve murmured a prayer for the dead under his breath as he set about scaling the first outer wall. Rut, and the anger he felt over the symbolic place Zemo chose for his base spurred him on, his fingers leaving dents in the aging masonry. If he could have, he would have torn the whole place down right then, brick by brick, the way he’d wanted to during the war if he’d even had half a chance.

It was infuriating to think of, all the good men and women Steve knew during the war, all of them were gone. Taken away by the hands of time while he’d been sleeping in the ice, but here was Zemo, alive and well, and playing mini Mussolini here on this island that still felt heavy with what Zemo’s masters had once wrought. It was unfair, wrong, and Steve intended to remedy it.

His trek up the wall left him atop it, with a perfect vantage point of the courtyard. He dropped down, laid his body flat along the top of the wall to hide his silhouette in the slowly brightening light of dawn. Zemo was there alright, with his back to Steve, surrounded by six of his sorry little minions. There were storage trailers full of weapons arrayed about, but none of them seemed to be carrying one, except Zemo himself. Good, he was still unexpected. Steve took a deep breath and dropped down silently behind one of the trailers, pressing his back to it and peering around it to get a good look and gauge where he needed to approach.

Not far from where he crouched there was another building, the doors to it had long fallen off, but it was positioned near a fairly unstable looking chunk of outer wall. Steve eyeballed it, and edged around to grab a flashbang from inside the weapon cart, hurling it into the open doorway, and then crouching down once more. As expected, Zemo raised his gun in alarm, barking out orders to his assembled henchmen to investigate the smoking doorway. Of course, he’d never go himself, and Steve had been counting on it. With the last of the men in the building, Steve let his shield fly with all his strength, hurling it at the crumbling stone wall near the entrance, it collapsed with a resounding thud, spilling bricks and dusty mortar over the doorway, trapping Zemo’s men inside, and leaving he and the baron alone.

“In your desperate nervousness you have missed me! Come, face your certain death at the hands of my disintegrator gun!” Zemo taunted, haughty and triumphant as ever. A gun that disintegrated whatever it shot at was not the easiest thing to fight with the shield, but Steve had improvised under worse conditions. “Have you finally gone mad then, hmm, has your grief made you lose yourself, Captain?”

“Fat chance.” Steve said grimly, emerging from behind the weapon cart, easily catching his shield as it spun back, and hefting it in front of himself. “What would you know of grief? You’ve never loved anyone or anything other than yourself.” He felt the anger then, stronger, more acutely than ever when Zemo merely laughed, pointing his gun in Steve’s direction. His movements seemed slow though, easy to track, with rut and the serum sharpening Steve’s reactions. Zemo was not an alpha, and he had never met Steve in circumstances like these.

“Love makes you weak, Captain, look, it has delivered you here to me all alone. You came here for vengeance did you not, for your young friend, Bucky? Or perhaps not, why, Captain America is far too noble and good an alpha to stoop to something so lowly as vengeance, what then, hmm?” Zemo was pacing back and forth, waving the disintegrator gun around, fully in his own theater production. Steve just watched him, waiting for an opening. “No, I see, I see now, it is to protect your pretty new teammates from me, so you do not lose them as well. Silly, silly alpha, you always were driven to foolishness by your altruism.” The tone was so mocking, so grating, Steve wanted to take his dinky little gun and shove it down his throat, but too much anger would cloud his judgment, so he centered himself, rolling out of the way when Zemo fired off a shot in his direction. He seemed to think he had the upper hand, that he had Steve where he wanted him, if his lazy use of the gun was anything to go by.

“I told you last time,” Steve ground out, and then he leaped across the distance between them, ducking down beneath Zemo’s wild shot to shoulder check Zemo with enough force to send his arms pinwheeling and his steps slipping backwards. “Not to mistake compassion for weakness, but you never learn.”

“You are nothing but a cheap Vaudeville trick made flesh, Captain, I will show you the error of thinking you can best your better!” It was a lot of bluster from a villain already on their back foot, but fully expected from Zemo. As was the barrage of flung punches and kicks delivered with all the confidence of a man who only ever roughed up his own minions. He was shooting the disintegrator gun with a gleeful sort of abandon, so assured in his victory he’d clearly decided to draw it out for his own amusement. Steve wasn’t amused, ducking the shots with grim determination, using Zemo’s focus on him to turn their positions, so Zemo’s back was to one of the walls made weak by multiple shots from the gun.

A few of Zemo’s strikes connected, but Steve felt nothing, setting his jaw, and rolling away from another shot, once Zemo gathered enough presence of mind to actually aim it at him. His ears rang with the noise of the blasts, but he paid it no mind, running towards Zemo, and kicking him in the chest with enough force to send him through the wall he’d unwittingly cornered himself by.

“You, you will never…best me.” Zemo said, lurching to his feet in the wreckage, pointing the gun in Steve’s direction. The sun was rising behind him, bright and almost blinding, and Steve tilted the shield, reflecting the light into Zemo’s eyes as he tried to aim. The shot went wide as he covered his hooded face, hitting a precariously damaged bit of building above himself and sending what was not disintegrated crashing down over the wall he had been thrown through. The structure buckled inwards with the impact, burying Zemo beneath countless tons of rubble.

Steve stood there, breathing heavily for a moment, and then flipped the shield onto his back, securing it in place. Zemo was surely dead, but there was still the issue of the island crawling with henchmen. Steve sighed, and set about rounding them up and leaving them near the shore wriggling and cursing in flex cuffs, or whatever rope he could find on the island. He hunted down the last one trying to swim for the mainland, hauling the sputtering beta up and tossing his bound form beside his other struggling friends. SHIELD was an easy call to make after all that business was taken care of, they could deal with the henchman better than he could after all. He wasn’t in the business of keeping prisoners.

“You shoulda stayed in school.” Steve said, crouching down by one of the youngest looking of Zemo’s men. “Read some books, I don’t want to see any of you ever again.” The henchman said nothing, Steve expected no less.

He stood, dusting his gloves off, and turning to go back to where the quinjet waited for him. “You can rest easier now Bucky, wherever you may be.” Zemo had been wrong about a lot of things, none the least of which were Steve’s full motivations for hunting him down. He was right about wanting to protect his new team, but Steve had once been an army man, and Zemo had caused the death of his brother in arms. Steve was not above vengeance for Bucky, or vengeance for the countless lives Zemo had taken, or the helpless people he once tortured with all the glee of a man pulling the wings off a fly.

Still, it felt more empty than he would have liked, as he boarded the quinjet to leave the island. He had no regrets, but the rush was slipping away, leaving only the urgency of rut, and a gnawing hunger he knew would take at least an hour in the kitchen to satisfy. He felt overheated and sweaty, which was slowly verging into cold and clammy as the drop skirted around the hum of rut through his body. Steve dragged the cowl down, grimacing as his damp hair fluffed out into an unruly mess. He probably looked like a dandelion, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

The flight back to New York was quiet, until the beeping of an incoming call cut through the silent hum of the engines. It was Tony, Steve could see him in the preview window projected on the glass of the cockpit. He was clearly at work, Steve recognized his fancy desk. He was holding a delicate cappuccino cup in his ringed fingers, and frowning down at one of his skinny little tablets. Steve felt his stomach sink, he hoped his teammates weren’t worrying about him.

“Time to pay the piper.” Steve muttered to himself, accepting the call.

“Steve!” Tony said immediately, his gaze snapping up to meet Steve’s over the call, and then widening slightly as it roved over his face. “Hey there, Cap, how are you, is everything alright?” Tony asked, and then winced.

“Uh, copacetic over here, Tony, how are you doing?” Steve was more than a little relieved not to hear anger in Tony’s tone.

Tony drummed his fingers on the desk, biting his bottom lip and shaking his head. Steve couldn’t help but notice he was wearing the cufflinks. “Sorry, I uh, wasn’t expecting you to pick up so quickly. I just noticed um, that the quinjet was missing, and so was my favorite hero in red white and blue…”

“Caught with my hand in the cookie jar I guess, time to fess up then?” Steve said, smiling ruefully. He felt it as his cheeks heated however, hearing Tony refer to him as his favorite hero.

“Steve, you can take the jet anytime you need it, but you're across the world, thought you might need some backup from your good friend the tin man, but I see you have everything in hand.” Tony smiled, leaning closer to his phone. His lids were lined with a dark, inky liner, emphasizing the blue of his eyes, and the length of his lashes. The way he was looking at Steve was so searching, so filled with real concern that Steve felt a little dizzy. “You _are_ okay though, right Steve, headed back home?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, “headed back home now, safe and snug as a bug in a rug.” It was such a simple statement, going home, but it meant so much. Ever since coming out of the ice he’d felt adrift, like some castaway on a sinking raft. The flight back to the mansion felt like sighting land at last. The team was there, waiting for him to come back, Tony was there, and worrying about him from the sounds of it. There was something to come back to, a real home, and a purpose to boot. Even the encroaching drop didn’t feel as ominous as he sat back and engaged the autopilot for New York. “See you soon, Iron Man.” He said, and settled in for the rest of the flight.


End file.
